Description of organisation

The organization is a catholic organization with an origin from an order focused on social work. The order is called Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration and has its mother house in Olpe in Germany. After several years a non-profit organization was founded and grew to an organization with 9000 employees. The social and health organisations vary from hospitals, kindergarten, youth aid (e.g. mother-child-houses) hospice for adults and children, education institutions and social and nursing support for elderly. One special location of these different institutions is the GFO Klostergarten for which the GFO is planning to host volunteers.
The GFO Klostergarten Merten combines several support systems for different kinds of clients.It is located in a small village between Cologne an Bonn. It belongs to the borough of Bornheim. The location accommodates a home for elderly people, a supported living home for adults, a common living project for people older than 50 years, a mother-child-house, a specialized youth aid group for under age refugees without family, a kindergarten and an ambulant nursing service. Since September a new branch evolved called neighbourhood management project. It is a non-political social work for the community with the purpose to connect the People living in the GFO Klostergarten and the village inhabitants. It is a networking project with the aim to include all people who want to into our activities and support systems. The project owns several rooms which are opened for activities. The biggest room is the "KulTür" . In this café there is room for big events like a theatre performance, a concert or regular groups e.g. people doing gymnastics once a week. All events and activities are done by volunteers from the village. The neighbourhood management project includes cultural events, advice and support systems for individuals and special target groups of people. Additionally it offers the opportunity to meet other people from the village with different Backgrounds, dirfferent Generations, dirfferent nationalities in order to get to know each other and spend a pleassant time with each other. The participants are very diverse. They represent all age groups, disabled or disadvantaged people and people who are living in the village.
Pictures and a Newsletter as annexes can give a brief impression of our work.

Inclusion topics

This organisation is willing to involve volunteers who face situations which make their participation in activities more difficult, from the following categories for different types of project:

• Disability
• Geographical obstacles
• Refugees