My Vote My Voice

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS:
Erasmus+ Learning Mobility of Individuals Youth Exchange „My Vote My Voice“ Bremen, Germany
Dates: 16th May (arrival day) –27th May (departure day) 2019

Project Overview
„My Vote My Voice“ promotes the development of young people‘s knowledge on European citizenship and opportunities for participation in life of the country through the activity in elections and helps youngsters understand their role as a part of the present and future of Europe.
We want to implement the project during the European elections 23 – 26 May 2019 and raise awareness about the #EUelections2019 and the campaign „This time I am voting“. This time it‘s not enough to just hope for a better future: this time we all need to take responsibility for it. So this time we‘re not just asking you to vote, we‘re also asking you to help to persuade others to vote too. Because when everybody votes, everybody wins.

The objectives of the project are:

• To inform youngsters about human rights and European Citizenship;
• To inform youngsters about political issues and importance of active participation in elections;
• To inform youngsters how national and European Parliament works and it’s main functions;
• To inform youngsters how they can influence of future of country and Europe by active voting on elections in order to improve the quality of life in their countries;
• To inform youngsters about importance of wide spreading information about elections in local communities.

Participant Profile
Each partner organisation will send 8 participants & 2 group leaders. Participants and Leaders must agree to attend the whole duration of the project, 16th -27th May 2019.

Participant requirements

• To have interest on the topic of the project
• To be between 18 and 30 years old. There is no age restriction for group leaders.
• To be able to communicate in basic English
• To hold the European Health Card (EU countries). If not, you might have to sign a document that exempts us from any responsibility related to eventual health care costs.
• Selected participants will (meet to) prepare for project activities, divide responsibilities, make home tasks, research information for seminars, make presentations for activities they are responsible.
• Responsibilities will be divided inside each group to provide active involvement of each youngster in the project.
• Participants with disabilities are welcome! Participants with economical, educational or geograhical obstacles (young people with fewer opportunities) are also welcome!

Group requirements

• Gender balance in the group (5 female / 5 male)
• Two person has to be young people with fewer opportunities

Group leaders profile

• Ready to implement activities during the project with the help of own group
• Has capacity to support his/her group and older than 20 years old
• Previously participated as a leader to any youth project at international levels
• Team leaders and participants of each country will be responsible for moderating a series of events during Youth Exchange, for achieving the best results they will have to analyze each topic, understand clearly the importance and objectives of activities, prepare in advance.

How to prepare

• The youth of each group at the head of their team leaders will conduct research on youth activities in elections and opportunities for participation of citizens in the political life of their countries, consider a governance model existing in their countries, its strengths and weaknesses.
• Participants will prepare presentations about their countries from political and civil points of view, find interesting examples of politicians making effective decisions related to the development of the welfare of the city and country as a whole, as well as striking examples of civic activity for the benefit of the local population
  -Team leaders should prepare energizers and games for team building in order to establish effective collaboration.
  -Teams leaders promise to distribute tasks equally between young people and give everyone an equal opportunity to develop personal potential and learn new skills.

What to bring?

• Some gastronomic specialities (food) to share with others during cultural nights.
• You can bring one or two bottles of traditional liqueurs (strong alcohol) for the cultural evenings but only for these occasions. For the remaining evenings only beers and wine are welcome as long as you drink responsibly
• Have comfortable clothes, as we might be doing active stuff!
• Good mood and motivation to share and learn from each other!

In regard to what do you need in concern to the venue:

• Shoes for inside. Since we would be staying inside most of the time, and it’s a really large house, you would need shoes for inside (slippers or clean shoes) the house. There is a policy of no “normal” shoes inside. It also helps us keep the place clean during our time there.
• Bring your own towel.
• Bed sheets (pillow cover, blanket cover, bed cover) you have to take with you.
• We would have first aid kit with us. But please make sure that you take any medication that you need.

Working language will be English.

Venue
Osterholz-Scharmbeck, Germany

We are going to stay in a very simple accommodation something like youth hostel, which is actually old group house in a middle of nowhere. We have chosen this venue in particular because of few reasons:

• It is in the middle of nowhere. This means the group will stay together at all times. There are no cafes, no discos, no restaurants, even no supermarket nearby.
  We will all get to know each other very well. It is important for the group energy and group dynamics.
• The rooms are going to be 2-5 beds per room. We are going to be from mixed nationalities, but from the same gender.
• We will be the only group in the house. It was important to us not to be bothered with other groups and other timetables and rules, so that is why we decided to come here where we would be alone. We would do workshops, make party, make events, cook and eat together, load the dishwasher. We would make the rules together, we would respect the rules that we make.
• There are showers in 7 of the rooms or just in front of the room.
• We have hired our own cooking and logistics team so they would prepare meals for us but also that nice and healthy food will be done for the people with food preferences – vegetarians, no pork and so on. We are not staying at a hotel, so don’t expect hotel environment.
• Everyone is expected to help out to keep the place tidy and clean etc.

Travel

Once participants are selected, they must look for their trip options. We would prefer you to come together as a group and at once on the arrival day. You can enjoy the travel in order to stay 1-2 more days in Germany doing tourism on your own (we will not cover these extra days’ hostels, food and other expenses).
It is not allowed to come one day later or to leave one day before the
designated dates of the project.
Before booking your travel arraignments, you have to send it to us to
have them pre-approved. Only approved flights and routes will be
reimbursed. This means that you have to send us screenshot of your
intended booking of flight. Within 24h we will reply you with confirmation that you can proceed with your booking or that you have to do some changes.

Arrival

The logistics to transport participants to the accommodation is not closed yet. We will inform about that once we know all the arrivals times. But, just to advance it, the meeting point to go to the accommodation is very likely to be the Bremen Central Station (Bremen HBF).
From there, you will take the bus 660 (Platform J) in direction Hagen and get off at the bus station Osterholz-Scharmbeck- Garlstedt BW Logistikschule on 16th of May. The bus leaves once per two hours until 19.00. The venue is 0,7km away from the bus station. At the station someone will be waiting to walk you to the house.

In case you arrive later than 19:00h you should go to:
Osterholz-Scharmbeck (Train station) on 16th of May. The venue is 12km away from the train station. Some of us will pick you up from the train station.

Departure

For the return, we will organize on the same way once we have your departure times for the bus or trains from Osterholz-Scharmbeck.

Flight information and airports

You can fly to Bremen, Hamburg, Hannover, Berlin. It will take you 1.5-4h of trains or busses to reach Osterholz-Scharmbeck.

Commercial airlines

www.skyscanner.com, www.ebookers.com and www.kiwi.com are good online engines – when you book early.

Trains

When you reach any of these towns or airports, you can take a train or bus to Osterholz-Scharmbeck. Please check your bus on www.flixbus.de to Bremen or trains on www.bahn.com/i/view/GBR/en/index.shtml. Please have in mind that the cheapest possible train you should chose regional trains. When arriving in Hannover or Hamburg, there is a group ticket called Niedersachsen ticket for this region. This means that the basic fare is 22€ for one, but 26€ for 2, 30€ for 3, 34€ for 4 and 38€ for 5 people travelling between Hannover, Hamburg or Bremen (Osterholz-Scharmbeck is in Niedersachsen region).

If you need any assistance with booking your flight or train, please contact us in timely manner and we will help to organize your trip since we have experience in finding the best and cheapest routes.

Trains Travel Costs, Reimbursement and Booking of Tickets

IMPORTANT! You must keep all travel receipts, such as boarding passes, train tickets, etc in ORIGINAL including tickets or vouchers you get from us and send them by post to us. So please keep all your tickets since it is not possible to reimburse tickets that were lost or misplaced. For the reimbursement you need to send us the following documents:

• Flight reservation (where we can clearly see the name of the passenger and the travel itinerary)
• Invoice by the flight company (where we can clearly see the cost)
• ORIGINAL boarding passes or online boarding passes printed(No scans, No pictures, No Screenshots)
• All ORIGINAL (No Screenshots, No pictures, etc.) tickets and receipts of bus/train (if any)

Note: Please do not use mobile app or mobile tickets to check in since it
makes it difficult to save the proof..

Within earliest 8 weeks after receiving the original documents and the links for the dissemination of the project which includes an article, blog or short report; the money will be transferred only to the responsible organisational accounts!
Please do not choose this project if you don‘t have time for dissemination of the project after the mobility or if you don‘t accept this pre-condition.
Be on time, if you miss your connection we cannot reimburse new tickets or tickets you did not use. We do not accept booking of flights and train tickets with travel agents.

Max. travel costs/per person:
Travel costs will be reimbursed according to the distance bands allowances from Erasmus+.
Slovakia – 275 €,
Germany – 20 €,
Turkey – 360 €,
Lithuania – 275€,
Romania – 275€

The amount of money allowed doesn’t mean that you should spend it all, but that this is the maximum that can be reimbursed.
If you need any assistance with booking your flight or train, please contact us in timely manner and we will help to organize your trip since we have experience in finding the best and cheapest routes.
Every participant is supposed to book their tickets not later than 15th of April. Our experience has shown that people who don’t buy their tickets until then, there are most likely not going to participate and we cannot find participants as replacement on short notice few days before the start. Therefore, please book your tickets and send them to us.

Participation fee:

• Accommodation, food and all materials are covered, but there is a
  participation fee of 35€. (The amount will be reduced from the refund of travel costs). Group leaders are excluded from paying this participation fee.

ATM & Cash:

In Germany all major credit and debit cards are accepted. However,
Osterholz-Scharmbeck is really small place and there might not be many ATMs. In the venue no cards are accepted so make sure that you have some cash with you when you need something from the shop or some drinks.

Clothes:

Make sure that you bring warm clothes. We are in North Germany, close to the North Sea and it is cold and windy. The temperature in the time of the project should be between 6 and 17 degrees Celsius, although when it’s sunny might come to 20. We will also have outdoor activities, where some simulations will be held outside, so make sure that you bring warm clothes for outside.

Youthpass:

Every person who takes part in an Eramus+ Youth in Action project is
entitled to receive a Youthpass certificate, which describes the non-formal and informal learning experience and outcomes acquired during the project. Working with Youthpass reinforces learning within the Erasmus+
Youth in Action projects and enhances the quality of the projects. You will
receive your Youthpass.
More information is available at: www.youthpass.eu

Communication:

We will soon create a facebook group to coordinate further organizing issues with group leaders and all the participants.

How to join the project?
If you decide to participate in the project please make sure that you have
filled the application and confirmation form, sign it and send it back to your organization with a copy of your passport before the 10th April 2019
(Deadline).
Should you have any questions regarding the programme or how to prepare best, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Contact:
Our email where you can get in contact with us for any information or
support shelterinternational49@gmail.com
Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/shelterinternationalgermany/
Contact Person (only in emergency cases)
Ayhan Feraset
004917645850368