In each edition of EFILife, we dedicate some space to partner news, including personnel changes as well as relevant events that have taken place over the past month.
From AFS Hungary comes the news that Csilla Fodor left the organisation after 7 years. First as Hosting Coordinator and for the past 5 years as Organisational Development Coordinator, Csilla managed to grow the volunteer force significantly and expanded the network of local chapters. In the future she would like to focus her professional career on training management and coaching.
Viktoria Bedő, former Organisational Development Coordinator, left the office end of June. Viktoria used to be the hosting coordinator before she went on an EVS (European Voluntary Service) programme to Turkey in 2013. After her return beginning of 2014 she got more involved in volunteer development. Due to Viktoria’s initiative AFS Hungary was able to increase its hosting numbers by 16% in 2014.
Gábor Csikós will be the successor of Csilla’s position, while Petra Tisóczki will replace Viktoria, both in their role as Organisational Development Coordinators. Gábor and Petra have been active AFS volunteers for the past couple of years.
Florence Ursprung, former Sending Admission Coordinator, has left AFS Switzerland after 3 months. The office has started the recruitment process in order to fill the position quickly.
Johann Kupeczki, former Hosting Support Coordinator for the German Region, has left the organisation for personal reasons after four months. His successor has already been recruited and will start at the beginning of December. In the meantime, Amanda Felber, former Hosting Support Coordinator has agreed to go temporarily back to the office. Until further notice, please continue to use Johann’s e-mail address for all issues related to hosting support: johann.kupeczki@afs.org .
After 4 years in the Support Area and many support cases successfully solved, Anna Pessato from Intercultura Italy decided to quit her position as Support Coordinator. But she is not leaving Intercultura: as from September, she became the Regional Coordinator for the area of Rome and surroundings. The new Coordinator of the Support Office is Paolo Murru who has worked in the Sending Office since 2009. He was an exchange student in Finland and got involved as a local volunteer later.
During the last years Intercultura Italy experienced a consistent increase of participants in the school based programmes. Unfortunately at the same time a significant reduction in the participants of the summer programmes took place, in both directions, sending to other countries and hosting in Italy. As a consequence Intercultura decided to invest more resources and create a new department, called “Short and pilot programmes”. A very experienced staff member, Simonetta Martina, accepted to be in charge of this new department. Simonetta will directly work on sending and hosting summer programmes and she will also run and evaluate any new pilot project in the area of programmes. Giulia Pezzi became the coordinator of the Sending Department; Giulia started working for Intercultura 5 years ago and after a couple of years in the Volunteer Development Office she moved to the Sending Team. At the same time, a new staff member joined the Sending Team: Michela Teobaldi.
Voluntary Service Programmes (18+) are a fast growing sector in Germany’s exchange market. Therefore AFS Germany launched a call for two internships positions for a maximum duration of 12 month. One starts March 1st, the second on July 1st 2015. For details do not hesitate to contact Michael.Bogatzkki@afs.org or the current interns Mafe maria.fernandatinoco@afs.de or Felipe felipe.volpini@afs.de.
AFS Denmark is looking for an intern for ICL and school relations. School relations are a vital part of AFS Denmark’s strategic ICL work and a key issue, which they would like to strengthen. AFS Denmark is doing this in many different ways with volunteers training peer to peer about school relations, staff being seconded to the Ministry of Education and as of now they would like to strengthen their staff with the opening of an internship position. The right applicant will along with other staff be responsible for developing key educational offers for schools. The office is looking for somebody with knowledge of ICL, training as well as passion and drive about AFS and its vision. Any questions can be directed to Niels Martiny niels.martiny@afs.org
For questions please contact frini.ezunkpe@afs.org