Young Workers Volunteer Program @ Outdoor Education Center at Lake Schwerin

Work experience is essential for getting a job. The Young Workers Volunteer Program is aimed at young adults who want to clarify career goals and gain intercultural knowledge.

This 12-months program provides you with an easily accessible opportunity for effecting positive societal change through volunteering, while improving your skills and competences for personal, educational, and professional development. Non-formal and formal learning opportunities during the program will enable you to acquire essential competences for personal growth in order to become an Active Global Citizen, thereby improving your employment prospects and facilitating your transition into the labor market.

The various projects in this program are looking for young, highly motivated team members to play an active part in their organization and to contribute to the daily work routine of the organization. The following project is one of the projects participating in the program.

Project Description: Outdoor Education Center at Lake Schwerin

Within the Young Workers Volunteer Program, AFS Germany offers the possibility to work for a provider of outdoor experiential education for school groups of all ages. As a Young Worker you will learn to conduct courses independently within a defined educational framework based on experiential learning and teaching methods. The overall aim is to help you develop a competence profile that will enable you to make a well-founded choice of experiential education activities/course elements and that enables you to plan a course program. Under conditions of high security and given quality standards, you will co-manage class and group trips in a young and professional team.

Working language at the project is German. You must have a German level of at least B1 (or higher).

The outdoor education center lies directly on the shore of Germany’s fourth largest lake, on the edge of the Mecklenburg Lake District in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Of course, the element of water is the focus of many activities here. With canoes, rafts and a rowing cutter we are here almost all year round on the Schweriner lake, in untouched forest and natural landscape, on the way. The small castle on site and historical outbuildings make the project site and the adjacent small village a unique place to stay. The state capital Schwerin is very close by and also an ideal destination for a day trip.

• Outdoor Education Center at Lake Schwerin
• Untouched nature and landscape
• Outdoor adventure: Canoeing, kayaking, high ropes course, campfire, camping, bivouac shelters
• Our primary educational principle “We’re going outside to get in touch with our inside.”
• This guides us in our experiential education work: nature as the preferred learning and experience space; learning playfully and with all senses; a pedagogical three-step approach: experience-awareness-competence; from action to reflection.
• All volunteers can take part in an in-house vocational training. The training ends with an examination course, which, if successfully completed, leads to a certificate as an “Outdoor pedagogue with a focus on experiential learning and teaching methods for class and group trips”. In order to document the high quality of this training, the certificate is signed by the scientific advisory board of the project. The training and examination are based on the guidelines and recommendations of the Bundesverband Individual- und Erlebnispädagogik e.V. (Federal Association for Individual and Adventure Education).
• Working language is German (Level B1 or higher is required)
• 12-months program participation