Call for participants: Youth exchange in Brezovica

MOUNTAINS CONNECTING PEOPLE

WINTER PEACE IN BREZOVICA

Youth Exchange in Brezovica, Kosovo, 12th – 23rd of March 2015

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

Our only planet is being challenged by the industrial civilization. Our society is constantly facing some kind of crisis – financial, social, environmental, energy, food – just to name the most pressing ones. Climate crisis is being the biggest challenge, which affects lives everywhere and threatens survival of many species, including human. Additionally, social climate in the Balkans has not been stable as well.  Behind the scary story, there are many inspiring alternative and sustainable examples of projects, communities, towns, initiatives… and this project is about them and ways for creating a climate for peace.

Winter Peace in Kuterevo, January 2014

THE YOUTH EXCHANGE

In the mid of March, 25 young people coming from Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, Bulgaria and Russia will gather in the mountain village of Brezovica, Kosovo, for 10 winter days. Through visits, workshops, debates, games, we will explore the biggest challenge of our civilization, mostly related to climate change and climate justice, translated into local reality and possible solutions.

During these 10 days, we will:

• …learn and share about climate change, impacts on humankind and nature,
• …discuss about climate change impact on human rights, equality, peace, and the future of the world,
• … get to know the local community, customs, tradition and lifestyle,
• … visit inspiring natural and cultural places around,
• … learn about and from wilderness,
• … create small projects on the topic (ie. video, photo essay, comics…etc),
• ….welcome the arrival of Spring,
• …enjoy, have fun and much more :)

LOCATION

Brezovica (Municipality of Strpce) is a small mountain village, with around 400 inhabitants, situated in the north-eastern part of the Shar Mountains in Kosovo, which is also protected as National park. Shar Mountains is the habitat of the lynx, bear, chamois, wolf, roe deer, wild boar, vultures and many plant species among which many are endemic and relict. The group will be accommodated in a motel, with warm hosts, tasty domestic (vegetarian :) food and magic views on the mountain and relaxing sound of a stream…

MOUNTAINS CONNECTING PEOPLE

The Youth Exchange “Winter Peace in Brezovica” is part of the bigger project called “Mountains connecting people” and part of SCI (Service Civil International) worldwide campaign “Create a Climate for Peace”. This project includes three Youth Exchanges, which will take place in different seasons in Kosovo, Bulgaria and Croatia, in small mountain communities separated by distance and history, but which have in common a close link to nature and traditional lifestyle.

Participants have the possibility to take part in one, two or all three Youth Exchanges:

1. WINTER PEACE IN BREZOVICA, Kosovo, 12th-23rd of March 2015.
2. AWAKENING OF SPRING IN VLAHI, Bulgaria, 10th-21st of June 2015.
3. ACTIVE SUMMER IN KUTEREVO, Croatia, 24th of August – 3rd of September 2015.

REQUIREMENTS FOR PARTICIPANTS:

We are looking for 5 participants, among which one will be chosen as a group leader. Previous experience in international youth gatherings (exchanges, seminars, workcamps…) is not required, but here are several points which will be taken into account:

• be interested in topics and willing to get prepared before the youth exchange
• be willing to disconnected virtually, but connected naturally
• be willing to live sustainably and in an international community in a remote place for 10 days
• be ready for active participation and contribution
• be ready to travel by train or bus to the youth exchange and back
• to be between 18 and 30 years young

PRACTICAL CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION

• accommodation and food will be covered through the project
• 80% of travel costs will reimbursed after all tickets are received

If you are interested in taking part in WINTER PEACE IN BREZOVICA,

send your application to gaia.kosovo@gmail.com before the 20th of January 2015.

The application form can be downloaded HERE.

(Applications for Youth Exchanges in Bulgaria and Croatia will be available 3 months before each project)

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Erasmus Mundus SIGMA: Scholarships for Western Balkans/EU

Deadline: 10 February 2015
Open to: students, researchers, academic and administrative staff from the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina,  Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia) or EU
Scholarship: travel costs, insurance, tuition fee, fixed monthly scholarship to cover living expenses

Description

SIGMA Agile is an Erasmus Mundus Action 2 project within the European Commission scholarship programme Erasmus Mundus Action 2, Strand 1, Lot 2, Western Balkans – part of a wider programme that aims at promoting institutional cooperation and mobility between the EU and other parts of the world.

Within this scholarship programme, there are over 150 fully funded scholarships available:

• for students, researchers, academic and administrative staff from the Western Balkans to visit one of the EU partner universities;
• for students, researchers, academic and administrative staff from the EU partner universities to visit one of the partner universities in the Western Balkans.

All fields of study are available according to partner universities’ offers.

Eligibility

• Students, researchers, academic and administrative staff from universities in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia who are nationals of one of these countries.
• Students, researchers, academic and administrative staff from partner universities in the EU who are nationals of the EU.
• All applicants must have finished at least one year of university studies.
• Applicants from the Western Balkans cannot have spent more than a total of 12 months over the last 5 years in one of the EU countries.

Scholarship

The scholarships will cover travel costs, insurance, tuition fee, and fixed monthly scholarship to cover living expenses:

• Undergraduates and Master will receive 1,000 EUR per month;
• Doctorates will receive 1,500 EUR per month;
• Post-doctorates will receive 1,800 EUR per month;
• Academic and administrative staff will receive 2,500 EUR per month.

Application

All interested candidates should first check which are the required documents HERE for undergraduate/master/PhD students and Post Doc’s and Staff respectively. All the documents should be in English or translated into English.

The application process is totally online and you must follow the next steps:

• Make sure you are eligible and decide which target group you belong to;
• Check the academic offers of the partner universities and decide which university you will be applying to – you have 2 choices. Applicants from the Western Balkans can apply to the EU partner universities only, applicant from the EU partner universities can apply to the Western Balkans partner universities only;
• Make sure that you fulfill language and other requirements of the potential hosting university. Detailed information is included in each offer;
• Collect the required documents, write motivation statement;
• Make sure the documents are in English (or are translated into English) and the motivation statement is well-written;
• Create an account. You will receive a personalized link to your online application form;
• Fill out the application form. Please note that you don’t need to fill it out and submit at one time. There are 3 stages: personal data, selection of the programmes and hosting university(-ies), uploading the required documents;
• Upload the required documents;
• Submit the application;
• Make sure that you have received a confirmation by e-mail.

The deadline to apply for the SIGMA program is 10 February 2015.

If you have any specific questions how to apply, contact SIGMA Team at: sigma@uw.edu.pl

For further information please visit the official website.

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Grants for Tourism Projects for seniors and young people

Deadline: 15 January 2014

Open to: public or private organizations active in the tourism sector, youth or senior policies

Grant: max. 220,000-250,000 eur per project

Description

Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises under the European Commission opens a call for proposals “Facilitating EU Transnational Tourism Flows For Seniors And Young People In The Low And Medium Seasons”. The main aim of this call is to strengthen competitiveness of the European tourism sector by encouraging the extension of the tourism season and by increasing internal mobility of seniors (over 55 years old)  and young people (15-29 years old).

The project proposals must follow one of the two following strands according to the chosen target:

1. “STRAND A” - Under this Strand, the Commission will co-finance specific actions aimed at developing transnational tourism products for seniors, facilitating tourism flows in Europe during the low and medium seasons
2. “STRAND B” - Under this strand, the Commission wishes to finance up to 2 projects that should be ”exemplary”, both in terms of their capacity to address the major needs and constraints young people perceive as barriers to transnational mobility and in terms of their ability to become a reference model which will be replicable and transferable.

Eligibility

Eligible applicants are:

• Public authorities (national, regional, local) and their networks or associations at European, international, national, regional and local level;
• International organisations;
• Youth/seniors organisations/associations/federations
• Universities;
• Training and educational institutions;
• Research centres;
• Destination management organisations and their networks/associations;
• Travel agents and tour operators and their umbrella associations;
• Non-profit organisation (private or public), NGOs, civil society organizations, foundations, think-tanks, umbrella associations, networks or federations of public or private bodies, whose core activity falls under the following fields: tourism, youth or senior policies, or any other field that is strictly related to the object of the proposal;
• Chambers of commerce and industry, chambers of handicrafts or similar bodies and their umbrella associations;
• Small and Medium Size enterprises (SMEs) acting in the tourism sector

Applicants must be established in EU Member States; or in countries participating in the COSME programme (list HERE). 

Proposals should be presented by consortia made of minimum 4 partners and a maximum of 8, from at least 4 different eligible countries. The consortium must be composed of at least 1 public governmental authority, 1 partner representing a youth or senior organisation, and 1 tourism service provider.

Grant

The maximum grant per project will be:

• 220.000 euros for projects submitted under STRAND A
• 250.000 euros for projects submitted under STRAND B

The Commission expects to fund 8-10 proposals. The EU grant is limited to a maximum co-funding rate of 75% of eligible costs.

Application

The deadline for electronic submission is 15 January 2015 17.00 hours (Brussels time). Applicants are requested to log in at HERE and follow the procedure for submitting an application.The electronic submission reference for this call will be COS-TFLOWS-2014-3-15.

Contact: EASME-COSME-TOURISM-FLOWS-CALL-2014@ec.europa.eu

For further information read the official call HERE.

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iOS Application Developer for Booking.com

Deadline: rolling
Open to: application developers worldwide
Remuneration: competitive salary

Description

Booking.com is the world’s leading online hotel and accommodation reservations company. They are looking for highly skilled developers to join their mobile team in the vivid city of Amsterdam. As an iOS application developer you will develop, design and maintain their Booking.com iPad and iPhone apps. The Booking.com iOS apps have been downloaded over 20 million times all over the world, so your work will have broad international reach.

The responsibilities:

• Maintain and enhance their iOS application;
• Translate requirements and mock-ups into fully functioning features;
• Develop new and existing iOS applications features;
• Provide estimates on development cycles;
• Implement conversion experiments (A/B tests);
• Partner with designers to help define and implement User Interface improvements;
• Work with team members on server-side integration.

Eligibility

• 3+ years iOS application development using iOS SDK;
• Knowledge of Cocoa, Objective-C and Xcode;
• Knowledge of Object Oriented concepts and a strong passion for software development;
• 5+ years of experience as a developer;
• Strong interaction and design sense;
• Self-motivated to explore new technologies, applications and environments;
• Excellent attention to detail;
• Self-starter, highly motivated, team-player;
• Fully comfortable working in English, both in writing and spoken;
• Willing/Able to relocate to Amsterdam.

Remuneration

Booking.com offers a competitive salary plus bonus, with possibilities for further career opportunities within their fast growing company. This position is open to worldwide candidates and in the case of relocation they will assist you with a relocation package ensuring a smooth transition to working and living in the Netherlands.

Application

Apply online HERE.

Contact: it.recruitment@booking.com

For further information visit the official website HERE.

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Call for Professors for Prishtina International Summer University

Deadline: 30 December 2014
Open to: university professors worldwide
Remuneration: €500 plus travel and accommodation costs

Description

The University of Prishtina “Hasan Prishtina”– International Summer University (UPISU) is organized by the University of Prishtina in cooperation with various donors and partners. The aim of UPISU is creation of direct links to regional and international universities as well as the advancement of the methodology of teaching and the increase of scientific research capacities. The Summer University gathers academics, professors and students from all around the world aiming thus the mutual exchange of their academic experiences and offers the possibility to learn more about Kosovo.

The 15th edition of UPISU will be held from 6-17 July 2015. It will be offering 10 credited courses covering a wide range of study fields such as social sciences, law, economics, arts, education, medicine, engineering, linguistics, agronomics, archaeology etc. The UPISU is now calling for course proposals from university professors.

Eligibility

The call is open to university professors from all around the world. Generally speaking, course proposals matching with or adding to the course suggestions provided by the university departments (based on their priorities and needs) have a substantial chance of being accepted. Additionally, departments are especially interested in hosting international teaching faculty who have the intention to develop future institutionalized co-operation with the UP.

Remuneration

The visiting professors will be paid 500 EUR for the whole duration of the course. In addition travel and accommodation costs will also be covered.

Application

Interested professors in be part of this program must fill in the application form and send it by email to:  Mirjeta.Ismajli@uni-pr.edu.

The deadline is 30 December 2014 although you are encouraged to send your application as soon as possible.

For further information about the application process please contact: Mirjeta.Ismajli@uni-pr.edu

More info : The official call

 

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