Open doors day at the Sofia City Library

If you were wondering how to spent this lovely Saturday (10th of may 2014), I will recommend you to stop by the Sofia City Library and take a look inside at our open doors day!!
You might find a new interesting book to enjoy with a coffee in the park or have a little chit - chat with one (or more) of the very sweet and helpful librarians or us interesting, young EVS - volunteers from Latvia, Greece, Spain and Denmark, who will be around (I'll personally be at the Nordic reading room, 4th floor) from 11:00 am to 18:30 pm.
And if you should feel like it, you might even take the chance and participate in Zanda's "Native American Art" workshop in the American corner from 11:00 - 13:00
Or
the "Creative English Magical Writing" from 13:00-14:00 also at the American corner by me (Maria)

Hope to see you there!

Sorting out books, that's what we do in August

August is the preferred holiday month for many Bulgarians. Sofia gets unbearably hot, people move to the seaside. Not much point in keeping the libraries open.

Still, the librarians do go to work. They clean dust, polish bookshelves, redecorate reading rooms, sort out and label the books.

That's what we have been doing in August.

Sorting out.

Labelling.

Emptying out reading rooms so that they can be refurbished.

Some more sorting out.

And yet a little bit more.

Cleaning the shelves, German reading room.

Our tutor Valentina, cleaning the Scandinavian literature shelves.

At the Children's Department.

The importance of wearing a seatbelt. International Youth Day 2013, Sofia

Petar from the Bulgarian National Agency with some goodies to be given away.

August 12 is the International Youth Day, as declared by the United Nations back in 1999. Celebrated annually around the world, the day is meant to raise awareness about the youth issues.

Altough young people form a significant part of the world's population, their problems and achievements are often overlooked. These people are often expected simply to 'be young', in the meantime forgetting that they are the segment of society particularly sensitive to issues like unemployment, poverty, lack of education, drug problems, discrimination. On the other hand, they are the ones contributing heavily as workforce, inventors, artists, scientists, enterpreneurs. The day is meant to highlight both the hardhips and the achievements.

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In Sofia this year's activities took place next to the famous NDK building. Set up by the Bulgarian National Agency, the event was a mixture of presentations, games and performances. There was one main stage as well as pavillions of various Bulgarian and international youth NGOs: the scouts, the business minded, the environmentally aware, the ones against human trafficking and discrimination, the work camps- and EU projects- related. For those in a more playful mood a labyrinth game was available at mini venues scattered around the park.    
 
An important part of this year's event was run by a cooperation of two Bulgarian & Greek road safety NGOs. Statistics show that road accidents are among the main causes of death among young people. The Greek NGO, Panos Mylonas Road Safety Institute, was initiated in 2005 by a woman whose son was killed in a car accident a year earlier. Among its other missions, the NGO travels internationally with their authentic experience simulators to demonstrate youngsters how important it is to wear seatbelts.       

One of the simulators, a real, normal car with four people in it, slowly rotates as if it was a kebab grilled over a fire. The 'passengers' inside are held only by their seatbelts. Sitting there, upside down, I do realise how easy it would be to break my neck if I was in a real car crash.
     

The kebab-like crash simulator.

Another simulator is a car seat sliding two metres downhill and knocking into a wall. Again, although both the distance and the speed of the 'accident' are low, it wouldn't take much to fall face down on the pavement if the seatbelt was not on.

In addition, one could try stumbling around red traffick cones wearing goggles that imitate vision of a drunk person, and to drive a computer game car in order to measure how ecological their driving skills were, thanks to the Bulgarian 'Open Youth'.

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For more photos from the event, see below.

Carmen, George and Inga, EVS volunteers at the Bulgarian Infinite Opportunities Association.

Daniel from CVS Bulgaria promoting international workcamps.

Milena from SMART Foundation Sofia.

One of the labyrynth stops.

Giving out leaflets, EVS volunteer David from Armenia.

More interns & volunteers: Madlena (Bulgaria), Kasia (Poland), Eneko (Hungary), Maria (Sweden).

Elina from Latvia in the background of animals.

What is EVS?

EVS - the European Voluntary Service - is a project run and funded by the European Commission. It enables young people to do voluntary work abroad for a period of up to 12 months. A volunteer's country of service has to be different than his/her country of residence, and at least one of the countries involved has to be a member of the EU.


Current EVS volunteers of Sofia City Library.

The volunteers get most of their travel costs and all their living expenses covered. Financially they live as modest-to-average people of the host country. Learning the local language is part of the programme, and language courses are provided regularly as part of an EVS project, as are introductions to the local culture.

In return the volunteers do full-time work in an area of their choice. Their work is NOT a substitute for paid employment. This means, a volunteer cannot replace a permanent member of staff at a host organisation but rather contributes with 'extras' such as new ideas, a foreigner's perspective, and helping the permanent staff at whatever needs to be done.

Many volunteers, in addition to the said tasks, start and run their own personal projects. Such projects increase the host organisations' scope of activities and simultaneously give the volunteers valuable skills and experience.

The host organisations typically are NGOs, public bodies, community initiatives. Often they are in remote locations and/or don't have sufficient funds to hire many paid staff. Finally, the movement of people enabled by EVS contributes to a more integral Europe, one in which countries are bound not only by formal law but also by personal relationships of its citizens.

EVS is part of a broader European Commission programme called 'Youth In Action'. The programme is coming to an end this year (2013) - the youth programmes are normally reviewed and modified every seven years.

At the time of writing, the European Commission are still deciding on what the 2014-2020 programme for young Europeans will include. We now know that it is probably going to be called 'YES Europe' and will possibly retain some of the established sub-programmes such as Leonardo da Vinci.

The future of the EVS as we know it is still uncertain but today we have heard some rumours that the EVS will probably remain too. We will keep you updated.