About EVS

EVS (European Voluntary Service) is a youth project run by the European Commission. The project enables young people between 18 and 30 years of age to spend from 2 to 12 months abroad as a volunteer. Volunteers are actively involved in all sorts of activities, e.g. working with children, youth or elderly, working on environment or heritage projects or arts and culture projects. In each individual project needs three actors: a sending organisation, a host organisation and a volunteer.

The volunteer is not paid for the time spent abroad, but his/hers travel costs from home to the host organisation are covered 90 %. It is also taken care of the volunteer's medical insurance (check the EVS Insurance Plan), accommodation and meals, plus he/she gets a weekly or monthly allowance (for information on this this year's (2011) allowances check the Youth in Action Programme Guide 2011 (http://ec.europa.eu/youth/youth-in-action-programme/doc/how_to_participate/programme_guide_11/programme-guide_en.pdf) under the What are the funding rules? on page 67). Not speaking the language of the host country is not an issue for the volunteer, since he/she is also entitled to language training, which in most cases means taking part in a language course or working in a language tandem. The project also covers volunteer's special needs (e.g. medical attendance, additional preparation etc.), which means anyone can apply for an EVS project.

A database of all EVS project is also available online (http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_en.cfm). Volunteers should find a sending and a hosting organisation at least three months before the project starts. Depending on when the projects start, there are five application deadline yearly:
  • February 1st (for projects that start from May 1st to September 30th)
  • April 1st (for projects that start from July 1st to November 30th)
  • June 1st (for projects that start from September 1st to January 31st) 
  • September 1st (for projects that start from December 1st to April 30th) 
  • November 1st (for projects that start from February 1st to July 31st). 
This means, if you want to start with a project in May, you have to apply at least by the February 1st or better even earlier. Speaking from experience, EVS is not well-known and popular in Slovenia, but in Spain or Czech Republic the situation is completely different. I myself have spent only two months searching for a host organisation as many projects I liked were "booked" for months and months ahead.

What else can I say? If you have any question, feel free to ask and check these websites (yes, the first two are in Slovenian only):
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