EVS - Evropska prostovoljna služba

We have a great possibility for you! We have a sudden opening in one of our EVS project, which is already approved!

Project: 2008-NL-14

Where: Netherlands

When: Preferably starting between September 1 – 15 2010

Duration: 12 months

Gender: Preferably a girl

You won’t be alone, there is another volunteer from Spain, also for 12 months.

Description of the organization: The “Beekhoeve”is a family run, owned and operated organic dairy farm. The family consists of Koos and Monique van der Laan. They have 3 children aging 2 to 7 years. The farm is open to occasional volunteers and visitors. We have worked with WWOOFers (World- Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, an international volunteer organisation). The target group involves everyone with an interest in farm work, farm life, nature, the environment and especially organic farming. The non-profit organisation is established in corporation with friends of the farm, this contains the activities that cannot be developed as a profit organisation. Activities that we want to set up are; a route where you can experience all the beautiful things of nature; together with the EVS’er we want to transform the ordinary walking routes into discovery routes where walkers will experience the beauty of nature; We want to make a point in the middle of the route where they can find a lot of information and where they can learn things about nature; the local plants, frogs, birds, etc. This point will also be the centre of educational activities.. From this central point we would like to organise group activities around different subjects, maintenance of the area and set out information points on the routes such as the kind of animals that are living in the canals/ditches, the typical birdlife, varieties of grass. .These are activities that the EVS’er can do. The EVS’er can also do promotion of these activities; create leaflets and other promotion materials. They can also organise special promotion days and work out themes for that. Target groups will be families, older couples and children.

Description of your activities:
EVS volunteers have to join in on the following activities/jobs: flower garden, vegetable garden, bird watching (sensational), agricultural nature conservation, prepare and have meals together, yoghurt making, carpentry, general cow maintenance, taking care of the calves, farm life as broad as it is.
Typical volunteer jobs are: constructing hedges from wood and braches, forest (bush) maintenance (to provide bird habitat). Writing experiences on the weblog of weidse buurt, making invitations and news letters. (optional) Maintenance of the routes and the information point. If it happens to be that they have knowledge about IT, and if they like to do it, they can make a website for the stichting. This is not really a requirement. Making a new bicycle route through all the local biological farms.

What you can learn:
Learning about local plant and animal life, Teaching city dwellers about rural life Be a part in the family life on the farm, see how an organic farm operates
The possibility to do various jobs on the farm together and under guidance of the farmers Explore their own capabilities or limitations in working as a team, working individually, taking responsibility as a person or as a group. Find their talents whilst doing various jobs and learning new skills They will learn about nature (the environment), about healthy food and about animals.

Your role:
They will be a part of the family. They will help with the animals and other farmwork. Every season has different kind of jobs (for example: picking fruit, weeding, cutting trees for firewood, feeding and take care of the cows in the winter). Their role will be also organising educational activities, such as developing the information points, creating new walking routes, maintenance and promotion of the walking routes, planning educational days, materials for these days, promoting the continuance of rural life side by side city life. We appreciate their creativity in this.

Code-X International Neel Fleuren EVS Sending Coordinator Tel.: 0031 (0) 345 518 731 www.code-international.nl