A LARGE–SCALE EU-linked project will be hosted in Didim.

The festival, which will be held from October 1-30, will draw in 33 European Voluntary Service representatives from 12 different countries, including Estonia, Moldova, Italy, Bulgaria, Spain, Albania, Belarus, Georgia, Romania, Poland, Sweden and Turkey.

The project, as part of the EU-relased Eurasmus initiative, expects to host a group of three young people from each partner country for a one month project in Didim.

Participants will be aged between 18 and 30, with groups including youth with fewer opportunities/disabilities and who possess a talent or well developed skills in either singing, dancing, craft making, traditional sport, etc.

During the large scale EVS young people with different social backgrounds will be involved as volunteers in the intercultural event called “Disabled Free Fest”.

The EVS will last for one month, and will be divided into four phases:

First phase – Preparation and team building training (5 days)

Second phase – Preparation of the Festival event (17 days). The volunteers and local youth will work in different groups:
• Management group (managing all preparation and implementation process)
• Media group (creating the promo materials and make a strategic plan for promotion event, managing website and pages in social media)
• Creative group which will be in charge of workshops and stage hand roles (preparing workshops and concert venues of the festival)
• Sport and physical activities group (planning, organizing and managing of sport activities during the festival)
• Performance group – include the singers, dancers and musicians who will be responsible for performance part of festival
• Decoration and technical group – group responsible for organizing technical support of Festival and decorating and equipping of festival area.

Third phase – Implementation of Festival event, 3 days (23-25 October2015)-The volunteers will represent their own culture, promote volunteering, lead workshops, make perfomances, organizing sport and physical activities for visitors of the Festival, which will include people with fewer opportunities.

Fourth phase – evaluation and dissemination of project’s outputs and results. The volunteers will make a promo video of volunteering among disabled people during the whole project implementation. This video will be one of the intellectual outputs of the project.

Fifth phase –For the Disabled People’s Day (3rd of December2015), a VED Forum « Volunteer Engagement of Disabled» shall be organized in Ankara.