16/06/09
Also during the course of this year VIDES AUSTRIA has been very engaged.
The NGO trained 15 young volunteers for their stay abroad. Two young men got the opportunity to do their Alternative Civilian Service with VIDES in Panama. The others (young women aged 18 to 22 years) are going to assist in social work in Africa or Latin America. According to their individual plans, the duration of their commitment spans from some months to an academic year.
One volunteer is going to go to Albania. There, in the region of Scutary, she will actively support the Don Bosco Sisters in educational projects for disadvantaged children & youth.Every volunteer – and amongst them especially those who know already their concrete destination/project abroad – is preparing himself/herself very consciously and with dedication for the challenge. VIDES Austria offers various meetings and workshops over a whole year. The prospective volunteers get to know the Salesian Preventive Educational System. As well they get thaught the features and expecations of a VIDES Volunteering and have opportunity to meet repatriad volunteers who report of their experiences, joys and difficulties… Further, they participate at a seminar at Rome and live already in Austria for a duration of two weeks in a Salesian community.
Sister Renate, responsible for VIDES AUSTRIA, visited the Salesian community at Arraiján, which is in the outskirts of the capital of Panama. Thanks to her one weeks stay, she was able to get a good impression of the reality of this place and the activities of the community. The invaluable opportunity of exchange to the responsibles on site was seized, Sr. Renate got to know the bilingual school and other facilities. She further checked the job requirements and work conditions of the VIDES volunteers doing an Alternative Civilian Service.
In July 2009 Sr. Renate is going to head with a team of 5 young VIDES AUSTRIA volunteers for Georgia/Caucasus. Alike the previous years, this is a co-operation project with VIDES BELGIUM, whose delegate Sr. Marina is participating with a young team of Belgium VIDES volunteers as well. They will jointly organize a formation for youth animators and recreational activities for children in two mountain villages. Thanks to the project’s consistency over years, it bears already fruit: Young Georgian animators, together with the Salesian Community in Georgia, now hold themselves formation camps in order to train new animators (also in other regions).
