Depaul supports people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. We work from low threshold principles to provide accommodation and key services to people who are often multiply excluded from other services. Our services span community and outreach, vulnerable families, harm reduction accommodation services and criminal justice and mental health services. We believe homelessness has no place. We endeavor to offer people effected by homeless the opportunity to fulfill their potential and move towards an independent and positive future. In our projects we see volunteers as an important aspect of our mission. This includes both part time volunteers who commit a few hours per week, student placements, full time volunteers and EVS Volunteers. The idea of including an EVS component in our services can be described as being at the root of our Vincentian ethos. Volunteers are an essential part of our work and none of Depauls services would be the same without them. However our services are run with a fully paid and qualified staff team, so that volunteers can fulfill additional added value activities. This particular project KA105-000038 involved 5 EVS Volunteers, 4 sending organisations and 5 Depaul host organisations. Each of the volunteers worked in a specific Depaul service and they all lived together in a shared house. Depaul has involved EVS volunteers in their work for more than ten years and firmly believes that the organisation and the wider community benefits enormously from their involvement. This project was no different and we had a very successful year with the 5 volunteers. EVS volunteers are involved in our services in order to allow the delivery of tasks that add value to our work. We are enriched as an organisation by the diversity that the EVS program brings and we encourage the development of intercultural understanding among our staff, Volunteers and service users. Number/ Type of participants: For this project we involved 5 EVS volunteers 5 Depaul Host Organisations and 4 Sending organisations as follows:- they were: 1. Katharina Eidenmuller Germany S/O Frauenring Breisgau e.V. pic 947396285 H/O Back Lane - 2015-1-IE01-KA110-008734 An emergency Accommodation Service for homeless men: 2. Maria Pospelova Russia S/O Interregional Youth Social movement of support of voluntary initiatives SFERA pic 948200803 H/O Peters Place - 2015-IE01-KA110-008736 Supported temporary accommodation for Men & Women 3. Toe Lo Piparo's Italy S/O Scambieuropei PIC 948841003 H/O Orchid House - 2015-1-IE01-KA110-008735 Emergency Accommodation for Men & Women: 4. Nicoletta Coppola Italy S/O Scambieuropei PIC 948841003 H/O Tus Nua - 2015-1-IE01-KA110-008738 Specialized accommodation for leaving leaving prison 5. Alberto Fernandez Garcia Spain S/O AIPC-Pandora PIC 946608548 H/O Sundial House - 2015-1-IE01-KA110-008737 Long Term Housing Project As an organization, Depaul Ireland’s vision is “that everyone has a place to call home and a stake in their community”. Depaul's mission is to offer homeless and disadvantaged people the opportunity to fulfill their potential and move towards an independent and positive future. Within the values of the work of Depaul Ireland lies a holistic approach to each individual with whom we work. This involves providing emotional support in addition to physical and practical services. It is within this structure that the work of our EVS volunteer programme is vital. The programme aims to develop the skills of the volunteer whilst simultaneously enabling Depaul Ireland to offer a more multifaceted approach to our service. The volunteers also benefited from the experience of non-formal and informal learning, thus helping them to acquire new skills and abilities which they will bring with them into the future. They each brought a new cultural dimension to each activity and were best placed to take the lead in developing added value activities with our service users and the organisation as a whole.