Naturfreundehaus Radofzell
Start of the Project: June 2015, duration 9 to 12 months
Organisation topics
- Education through sport and outdoor activities
- Environment and climate change
Description of the organisation
The NaturFreundehaus Bodensee is a hotel (150 beds) with a restaurant and many leisure facilities. Our guests are many families with a lot of children and from spring to autum, there are many pupils. The house disposes of sustainable tourism and we like to make the nature a real experience while preserving the natural foundations of life. Our staff consists of service, kitchen, reception, housekeeping and -technik and the pedagogical team, which actually consists of 3 employees. Our «sister-house» is the NaturFreundehaus Schwarzwald.
The NaturFreundehaus Schwarzwald is a typical house of the black forest where many backpackers and nature lovers feel at home. There´s self-support and there´s the possibility to stay there with half-board . The hostel (50 beds) is headed by a hostel warden. Several volunteers helps him conducting the hostel.
Motivation and EVS experience
The «NaturFreunde Deutschland e.V.» is a nonprofit organisation for environment, culture, recreation and touristik stands for international solidarity, cosmopolitanism and of course the idea of environmental protection. We, also the «NaturFreundehaus Bodensee», act upon the basic principles of sustainable tourism, that means that we use exclusively regional products. We also try to connect ecology with economy. It´s our aim to merge europe and to tide over the differences. We´d like to get to know the culture of the volunteer, to live tolerance and we hope to get new aspects and ideas for our work. We also like to bring close our culture and to get educated in an intercultural way. New ideas should be compared and the «NaturFreundehaus Bodensee» hopes to get more intercultural spirit through the support of the volunteer.
Project environment
The NaturFreundehaus Bodensee belongs to Markelfingen, a district of Radolfzell and is located near a nature reserve in the western lake of constance, the «Untersee».Opposite ist the Mettnau peninsula on which is a nature center and some health centers. South-east in sighting distance there´s the island of Reichenau, a very famous world heritage site. According to Konstanz and Singen Radolfzell is the third largest city in the district of Konstanz and is a regional center for the surrounding communities. The town offers many opportunities for shopping and a welcoming pedestrian area with some coffeehouses and bars. Nearby, there are many recreational opportunities, for example a climbing hall, the swimming area of Itznang, the island of flowers Mainau and the island of vegetables Reichenau, the university town of Constance or the lake dwellings of Unteruhlingen, etc.
Das NaturFreundehaus Feldberg is located in the black forest near to Hinterzarten, a village with about 2.700 residents, 1348m above sea level. Its surrounded by the nature preserving area Feldberg. It is located in the middle of nature, that´s because it takes about 30 min to the next bus station. You need about 45 min to Freiburg, a university town with 200.000 residents and a great variaty of cultural possibilities.
Proposed activities for EVS volunteers
The volunteer gains insight in the kids- and youth-programms, into the pedagogical work and gets the experience of beeing a great support and connector between the guests and the house. The volunteer could be inserted in the different fields of the kids programm (daily childcare during holidays), programms with the grades of school (for example geocaching or teambuilding), watersports (raft building and canoeing), nature investigation (conducted tours and outdoor-activities) and is supporting the experiental education and nature pedagogic team. The volunteer will work together with the pedagogues, as well as self-reliant. She/he will plan and execute some actions (for example kidsprogramme, playing afternoons, birthdayparties) independantly (with the support of the pedagogues). Furthermore the volunteer gets different insights to the life and work at the NaturFreundehaus. This could be decorating, the food bank for the grades of school, marketing and environmental activities. There´s also the possibility to implement an own project which can be conducted with our guests. Thereby the focus is located on the main interests of the volunteer.
In winter, that means from december to march/april, there´s no work in the NaturFreundehaus Bodensee. For this reason we want to enable the volunteer to stay at the Feldberg during winter. Thereby the local differences, but also the caracters of the hostels and the different leisure- and natureconditions could be experienced. The main aspect of the work will be the support of the guests, the escort during trips, the arrangement of leisure activities with the guests and the maintainance and repair of the house.
Volunteer profiles and recruitment process
The volunteer should have experience in youthacitvities, as well as experience and interest in working with children and young people and should dispose of basic knowledge of the german language. The ideal case would be if there are special experiences in theatre, nature(sports), animation, watersports, childcare or in another field. The selection takes place through an open application process. After the application documents (motivation letter, curriculum vitae and some other certificates) arrived, we get in contact with the volunteer. We would appreciate the sending organization will write a reference for the candidate. We´re looking forward for candidates coming from different countries. In long term it is planned to work together with solid partners.
Risk prevention, protection and safety
Rules for safety at work will be fallowed, the working aspects are age-appropriate and do not need special knowledge. There will be a mentor who instruct the volunteer in rules of law and the working fields. Beyond this, wie only host volunteers who are 18 years and older.
Number of volunteers hosted: 2
Selection process
For the selection of the volunteers we will need:
– Europass CV with picture (made in the last month)
– Motivational letter, writing that your sending organisation will be “Building Bridges”. We ask all candidates to send a specific letter of motivation – why they want to volunteer with us rather than just a general EVS one.
Remember to write in the motivation letter that your sending institution is “Asociación Building Bridges”.
All documents written in english you can send to: asociacionbb@gmail.com with subject “ Naturfreundehaus Bodensee, Selva Negra en Alemania”.
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