Our EVS Mid-Term Evaluation

According to the EVS charter of Youth In Action Programme, every year two mid-term evaluation meetings are being arranged by National Agencies. In these meetings, all volunteer who are doing their EVS are invited throughout Italy. These meetings aim volunteers to evaluate their projects, EVS experience and process. Also volunteers have the opportunity to meet other volunteers (that is, new friends), to share their knowledge of EVS (how to integrate, how to manage conflicts, how to adapt) and to have some rest and trip. 

Also National Agencies can have the opportunity to have some database to make statistics and to know if volunteers are active as expected and if the programme is useful as much as intended.

The meeting was planned for the 21-24 of February, in Torre Del Greco. Therefore we four volunteers went to Napoli, for Torre Del Greco, a middle-sized town connected to Napoli. We arrived Napoli at 11.00 in the morning. We walked in the historical part of Napoli, which has many cathedrals, churchs, towers and obelisks, until we were picked up by pullman for Hotel. Meanwhile we met some of our friends from On-Arrival training in Rimini.

The hotel was some twenty minutes far from Napoli. There were 45 volunteers, most of them were new faces, but also there were some familiar faces. After one hour to settle in the hotel, we planned a schedule for four days. According to plan we would have worked two full days and two halfdays.

First task; explain the projects: the evaluation meeting started with this task. We were asked for draw an image about our evs experience and talk about the project and the connection between image and our experiences. When everybody finished the drawing i understood how the images can be different for people. The first task was also an self-introduction task.

Second task; to portrait the EVS: for that task we were divided in 6 groups, and every group was asked to picture EVS. When the time had finished and the groups had made their presentations we had 6 different metaphor of EVS.

Third task; to explain what we’ve personally learned from evs.

Forth task; evaluate the projects: we were given two different questionaries about our projects to measure if we are glad about projects and if we developed our knowledge after arriving Italy. According to the pointing system we prepared a dart board and we put points on the board.

Fifth task; "Sveparlamento": in fact this task was a kind of roleplay. We were asked to imagine of a political party, and what would we do for evs if we were the managers of that party. Three proposals for improving evs.

Sixth task; history of Italy: this task was to check if the volunteers had learned the main characters, dates, and events in the Italian History.

Seventh task; Being EVS volunteer. We were divided in different groups to explain what a volunteer is and what are the keywords of EVS. Eighth task; conflict management: we were asked to write a letter to alien and explain what kind of conflicts we had during the EVS.Nineth task; "taboo": this task was a kind of roleplay. We were divided in 5 groups and we prepared some plays without using the chosen words.Tenth task; youthpass: in this task we were divided in 6 groups an we were asked to prepare a youthpass.

Last task; final evaluation: the last task in that three days was to evaluate the mid-term evaluation meeting.. what we liked, what we did not like. What we wanted to say.

After the last task we arranged a party. 

The following day (the forth) we went to Pompei!

Nejdet - EVS Volunteers

"A Solidarity Shelter"