Association Volontarius ODV

Name	Association Volontarius ODV
Logo
Country	Italy
City	Bolzano/Bozen
Address	via Di Vittorio 33
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Coordinates	46.476042788806, 11.324266454982
Foundation year	1999
Email	europa@volontarius.it
Website	http://www.gruppovolontarius.it

The Association Volontarius ODV was born in 1999 from a group of volunteers which began to go, in the evening, to the gardens of the railroad station, to get in contact with drug addicted people, people without a place to sleep, and people that live in need.

Over the years the activities of the association increased and with them even the structure. Although principles as the importance of voluntary work (without which the association couldn’t lead all the activities), the defense of personal dignity and rights and the assistance in every moment to everybody who needs without any distinction, have always remained central points of our project.

We follow the procedure of ASSISTANCE – LISTENING – COMPANY:

• Assistance: To help to provide sustenance and clothing and other primary needs.

• Listening: To get in touch with their daily routine, creating a form of communication to understand their real needs, to be able to work for their integration.

• Company: To lead projects that work for the development of  integration and through the partnership with social services.

It works mainly thanks to public funds, in fixed structures and mobile units.

All volunteers will have the opportunity to take part in the activities of all the projects of the association, but most of the time will be carried out within a single project (to be agreed according to the interests of the volunteer and the needs of the association , which can be found to deal with emergency situations), also to ensure a better coaching, mentoring and constant quality and a greater learning.

All volunteers will participate in public events, especially those that use art, graffiti and other alternative languages ​​to awaken public opinion to social issues.e your activities]

Street work

• Project “Oltre la Strada” (Over the Street), in which operators and volunteers, with an equipped camper, meet homeless people. The social workers try to understand the real problems of homeless and to begin a individualized path to recovery, to supervision and eventually to accompany them to other structures. The equipe does constantly control homeless people in order to get in touch with them.

• Project “Alba”: it is a project for people who prostitute themselves. These people are constantly monitored all over the province of Bolzano, in order to try to understand how many between them are forced into prostitution and offering, in this case, help to get out this trouble.

Shelters

• Center of “cold emergency”, active from November till March, is a structure that can host homeles people during  nighttime, when temperatures go down. The service offers food and materials for personal hygiene.

• Shelter service for people who ask for asylum: there are two residential structures (one for “emergency”, the other one for long stay) who host people with the refugee-status. They receive not only basical assistance (bed, meals, medical assistance and bathroom), but even social secretary ship, assistance in the research for documents, language courses (Italian and German), education, activities for the knowledge of the territory and integration, can practice sports and participate to events (football, parties open to everybody, art workshops, cinema). The work is focused not only on the assistance activity but also on the relation quality and on the animation and training activities, therefore the activities proposed to the volunteer are: hosting of the guests and registration of their entrance and way out times; distributing to the guests necessary stuffs to their personal hygiene and to the cleaning of the places where they are hosted; ordering of lunch and dinner; organize intercultural events and entertainment activities for the guests of the centre and for the citizenship; listening and moral support to adults, sharing social and intercultural activities and talking to them. Opportunity for the volunteer to propose and organize activities using his/her fantasy and creativity. We believe that everybody can give more to this program and we think that a volunteer can feel free to express all that he wants helping them to make it.

• Shelter service for unaccompanied foreign minors (9 places for guys between 14 and 18 years). The activities are similar to those for people who ask for asylum. There are more language lessons, household rules for a future independent home, stage and free time activities that already exist in our territory, voluntary work as a form of integration (the boys of the centre become real volunteers for other centres).

• Centre “Casa Conte Forni”: the structure is divided into 4 parts: daily centre for UE homeless people, night host service for UE homeless people, emergency centre for refugees, highly autonomous flats.

Voluntary culture and local solidarity

• Project “Oltre il volontariato”, with focus on young people. Through this project the young volunteers are involved in various social activities of our organization. These experiences help them in their personal growth and, in some situations, prove to be therapeutic actions. The project also includes awareness-raising actions in schools and training courses run in collaboration with teachers.

• Setting up of internship and trainings, of community service projects, alternative sentences to imprisonment.

Social Art

• By means of the two projects of the association "ComunicaStrada" and " Diversamente Insieme," in which workers and volunteers use the languages ​​of art (painting, graffiti, music, DIY, photography, modeling of corn dough, mosaics and other techniques) to get involved with people in different situations of social disease. Art is a facilitator of communication, it is often a simpler language for those who are in a state of distress, in addition, is a bearer of heartfelt messages and helps to awaken self-confidence and their manual, mental and creative abilities. The project makes use of a mobile laboratory (ComunicaStrada) and an artist's studio at the Association (Diversamente Insieme).

• Project Murarte: follows the groups of young writers in the municipal area, with the collaboration of the Municipality of Bolzano, and provides some walls and the material to permit the development of graffiti art in a legalized context.

• Activities in the city with the aim of integrating young people from migrant families with young natives: multicultural football tournament, a competition for young bands, participating in events with the collaboration of other Association (People’s Festival).

Pet therapy

• "Snoopy", this project consists in "dog agility" paths (obstacle course), made ​​together by dogs and people with mental illness with the assistance of a professional instructor. The dog obedience to the instruction given by the person helps to awaken the self-esteem of the same, while the performance of the path together with the animal contributes to resume coordination of body movement (running, walking, various physical movements).

• Social Emergency 24/24h in the entire province of Bolzano, via a phone number that will be always answered up by an operator of the association, trying to provide solutions to situations of social emergency.

Fight Against Food Waste

Since 2013 a group of volunteers named “Cacciatori di Briciole” collects unsold food products in bars, supermarkets and other companies, and brings them to other projects of our and other organizations to be eaten within the day.

Aa group of volunteers manages a little warehouse, where food is being stored and redistributed to at least 100 families living in Bolzano. The food is still perfectly edible and is provided by the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived, The National Food Collection Day in Italy, the food saved by the “Cacciatori di Briciole” and private donations.

Activities: Administration, logistics and general services: administration of the association, managing a warehouse that distributes weekly food packages to families in need, a recovery service of food near the expiring date at supermarkets, bakeries and bars, and subsequent redistribution to the guests of the centers, to people without home and other people in social disease.

Team

Volontarius works with 150 staff members and more or less 300 volunteers. It activates even projects of Civil-work, apprenticeship, stage and of alternative sentences (social work instead of imprisonment). [1]