Doing an EVS project in Ysselsteyn will be the best experience. Friends of Ysselsteyn is part of the International Youth meeting and educational centre in Ysselsteyn ( YMC ) from the German War Graves Commission. This centre is used as a place and occasion of (inter)national (youth) encounters as well as a place for critical engagement . There are projects and modules for academic and extracurricular youth groups, and adult groups offered that allow young people access to the events of the Second World War and its consequences. School classes and other groups here have the opportunity to directly confront one weeks in addition to the largest German military cemetery of WWII in Western Europe with active European remembrance . Such week includes both learning through projects , discussion of the history and maintenance services to the military cemetery and the strengths of social skills. Even members who are interested and tourist groups have the opportunity to use the YMC as accommodation and to visit the cemetery . You will… - experience the Dutch culture, and will get new friends with different cultural backgrounds. - learn the Dutch and German language and you will improve your english during the exchange programs. - get the oppurtunitiy to experience life in a youth meeting centre, where a group accomodation is runned by a small team of enthousiastic people with a special goal, which is peace education. - be a host or hostess for the groups that stay at the house, prepare the visit of our groups and checking in and out of the group - improve your social skills. - learn how to do games (like energizers and language games) with the visitors. - get the opportunaty to visit lot's of special sites/musea etc in the Netherlands. - learn about marketing and media. - work on special themes like World War history, propaganda, censure, reflection, etc... - support and guide the projects like 'Biographies of German soldiers', 'Censorship', Child soldiers', etc... - work mostly with youngsters of the age between 15 and 18 years old, but also sometimes with children between 10 and 14, adults and elderly people. - learn how to set up a youth exchange. - organise events and exhibitions - know how to help youngsters during a visit of an exhibition. - learn about the World War I and II histories. - talk with relatives of the people who are burried at the cemetery. - give guided tours over the german war cemetry and guide visitors through a part of history and let them think about the European future. - get the change to realise their own projects. - learn about the importance of Europe. - office and administrative work. - household, kitchen and cleaning work. -working outdoors / at the cemetery - learn about taking responsibilities for themselves. - all the work in and around the YMC Ysselsteyn, help where ever is needed. This can be helping with the educational programms, helping with setting up a youth exchange, helping with our exhibitions, but also helping in the kitchen and with the cleaning. It is a nice mixure of work. The general objective of the EVS volunteer at Friends of Ysselsteyn is to provide opportunities for social and personal grow of volunteers and youngsters from hosting youth groups along with organizational development by bringing added value to existing activities and implementing new ones which stimulate the peace and remembrance education, encourage active participation of youngsters and strengthen the international partnership. The volunteers will support all staff which are working for 'Friends of Ysselsteyn' and the 'Youth meeting centre Ysselsteyn (the group accommodation for schoolclasses etc.. who work on peace education). This means they will help with the administration staf, the house keeper and the educational service. The volunteers will have no responsibilities of the end result. They will always be mentored within their tasks. They will also get the oppurtunity to work on their own projects, with the support of our staff. It depends on the project who will support them. They will get the oppurtunity to represent our organisation towards our partners, for instances during youth workers meetings, teachers meetings or during educational fairs. During their work they will get in contact with all sort of partners that we work with. they will be closely involved in all the projects.