Jihomoravské dobrovolnické centrum z.s.

description of organisation

Civic association Plan B was established in January 2001 as a response to a general need for providing a larger scale of activities offered for unorganized children and youth. In 2011, we expanded our activities and also turned our attention towards volunteering – we did a research of volunteer opportunities in the region, we started the cooperation with organizations and we created Volunteer Center 67, located in the city center of Brno. Our team is composed of two regular employees and three external employees, usually one or two Czech interns and occasionally one foreign intern.

We provide support and guidance for young people aged from 15 to 30 years, we help them by using the methods of non- formal education and coaching to acquire competences, skills and knowledge required in practice. Via our offer of volunteer opportunities, we enable them to participate actively in social affairs and events, to contribute to the development of local communities or to collaborate on the topics according to their own interests. We also provide information on leisure time activities offer, international opportunities for personal growth (European Solidarity Corps, study visits, work-camps, youth exchanges), funding opportunities for volunteers´ own projects etc.

Once or twice a week we provide various types of evening programmes for the public (between the parentheses are the statistics from 2018): successful youth projects presentations (2 programmes, 17 visitors), experiences from international volunteering visits (promoting projects as European Solidarity Corps, Workaway, HelpX, wwoofing, workcamps) (11 programmes, 234 visitors), experiences from voluntary work in the Czech Republic (presentations of voluntary opportunities offered by NGO in Brno, for example ADRA, Liga vozíčkářů, Nadace Veronica, Hnutí Brontosaurus, SOS dětské vesničky) (8 programmes, 57 visitors), documentary projections from the festival of documentaries One World followed by discussion (examples of documentaries: Swedish Theory of Love, Dil Lejlá, AsexuaLOVE) (7 programmes, 76 visitors), presentations about alternative lifestyle (alternative way of housing, shopping, health care, travelling) (5 programmes, 167 visitors), experiences of foreign volunteers working in the Czech Republic (3 programmes, 41 visitors), photography exhibitions openings (6 programmes, 140 visitors) and workshops (for example about Zero Waste, Critical thinking and fake news, Non-violent communication, DIY workshops - creating own barefoot shoes, sewing of eco bags) (5 programmes, 61 visitors).

We closely cooperate with more than 50 non-profit organizations and non formal groups of young people in South Moravian region who involve those volunteers into their activities and daily tasks. We interlink young voluntary work adepts with organizations and non-formal groups. These organizations need their help and at the same time offer collaboration and consider the engagement of young people in voluntary work and help them to develop their individual skills and key competences. We do networking and we organize meetings and conferences of NGOs located in South Moravian region and non-formal groups which together work with young volunteers (aged from 15 to 30 years). We hold regular monthly non-formal meetings with the volunteer coordinators of these organizations, which enables to maintain our cooperation still active and productive. Furthermore, we provide educational workshops for professionals working with volunteers. These activities lead to sharing experiences, planning common activities and projects and promoting voluntary work. We have developed as well a partnership with organizations from Iceland, Romania or Tunisia where we participated in networking meetings and study visits in the recent years.