Mid-term (1 to 6 months) "study/educational" project in Russia

Friendly Moscow is our main long-term project. We already had one MTV and one EVS volunteer who led the project. The idea of the project is to make Moscow a friendly, open and interesting place for foreigners and for locals as well.

Moscow

20+

at least basic Russian (because it is difficult to communicate and navigate without knowing Russian alphabet), English is obligatory and other languages are welcome.

a room in a host family.

100 euros allowance for food are provided by AYA, the rest by the volunteer himself/herself.

Metro-bus-trolleybus card is provided by AYA.

Motivation letter + CV + photo required.

Volunteer’s ideal profile AYA is looking for a person who is highly motivated, open-minded, flexible and independent. A volunteer should have experience in the sphere of volunteering. He/she also should be ready
to organise presentations, events and speak to the audience.
He/she should be able to work independently and to cope with living in a big city like Moscow.

Volunteer will be in charge of organising events with AYA volunteers on different topics connected with volunteerism, peace, critical thinking, cultural differences as well as with the help of aya team of organising presentations in Moscow public youth spaces. Volunteer will have enough free time to implement his/her own ideas, to discover NGO world and youth
public spaces in Moscow. We will also ask the volunteer to continue AYA blog on Friendly Moscow (http://friendlymsk.blogspot.ru/).

● Organising activities (seminars, games, lectures, meet ups of volunteers, members etc.).
● Organising in-formal events (events of national food, musical events, festivals etc.) for the promotion of culture of the sending organization.
● Collecting data and video interviews for Friendly Moscow blog (a blog about friendly Moscow places for youth, foreigners).

The organization is located in the capital of Russia, Moscow (population above 11 millions). AYA office is just 20 minutes by underground from the city center. The office is in several minutes of walking from the underground station Dmitrovskaya. Our organization is located in the area called Flacon Design Factory. It is a former industrial complex, gradually filling with design studios, promoters, showrooms and workshops. It is not the busy city centre. It is more like a new calm European district of Moscow. We rent an office space for 2 days per week in Flacon Eco-centre (http://centrecon.ru), plus we have an event area where we organise weekly meetings for volunteers.

AYA is a non-profit NGO with its activities based on the principles of voluntarsm, equal rights of members of the organization, self-governance, legality, transparency. The aim of the organization is to promote volunteering and charity. The main activities of AYA:
● organization of international volunteer workcamps on the territory of Russia with promotion of conservation of Russian nature, sustainable living, environmental education and intercultural communication;
● informational, organisational, educational, technical support of social initiatives of volunteers and NGOs;
● educational activities, distribution of information about volunteer movement and charity work;
● organization of cultural and social events aimed at promotion of peace movement, sustainable living, active citizenship among young people.

AYA has a democratic structure with the board which consists of young activists experienced in organizational activities. The staff of the organization also consists of young people.
Nowadays there is 1 staff position for the whole year, plus 1 employee for the period March-July, 8 permanent volunteers. Apart from staff there are always volunteers in the office coming to help or organise different activities. Local volunteers of AYA are mostly students from Moscow Universities with active citizen position.

Please take into account when applying that it takes at least one month to obtain a Visa to Russia for UK citizens.