Volunteering in Bolivia – ASPEm is looking for a volunteer with experience in organic farming for 1 year in Bolivia to work with community farming and family farming groups.

[What is EU Aid Volunteers?]

Deadline:

30/09/2020 

Deployment dates:

01/01/2021 – 30/12/2021

General Description

ASPEm Bolivia works in Tarija to support local farmers to become more resilient by implementing sustainable agriculture production techniques and facilitating the distribution of their products in order to promote economic self-reliance of the communities, improve their nutrition habits and protect the environment.

ASPEm Bolivia currently collaborates with the local organisation RENACC engaging 13 communities consisting of 200 farming families in the initiative and 5 new communities will join it.

The volunteer will help to strengthen the agroecological productive capacity by generating adequate proposals from a cultural, socioeconomic and an ecological point of view. Also for these, awareness and informative courses will be given to the families. The courses will focus on the production system transformation of amaranth farming and horticulture.

The volunteer will also conduct awareness and informative training sessions for the families with a focus on the production system transformation of amaranth farming and horticulture.

Operational details & security context

The volunteer will be based in Tarija, the capital city of Tarija department, one of the nine departments that make up the Plurinational State of Bolivia. The nature of the work will require field visits to the rural areas surrounding Tarija. Tarija is the smallest department of Bolivia. The language used in Tarija is Castilian Spanish but there is also Guarani, the native language of the Gran Chaco area. Tarija is a welcoming city that well preserves its natural and cultural heritage. It is surrounded by lovely countryside and offers various cultural opportunities (music, museums, etc). It is a safe area and has all city services including health care, technology and land and air transportation.

The city of Tarija has a health system of 1st, 2nd, 3rd level: a Main Hospital, Health Centers in every city zone and Private Clinics. In the area of the city where the volunteer will live, there is a health centre called “Pro Salud”, which is well equipped and has all medical specialities. Additionally, the city zone has a centre for integrative medicine called “CIES” and some private clinics for different medical specialities.

Covid-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all countries in the world, including Bolivia. According to Bolivia’s Ministry of Health daily report, on 19 July 2020 there were 1444 new COVID-19 cases in the country. This has raised the total number of cases to 59,582. The number of recovered cases is, instead, 18,553. To date, Santa Cruz has had 29,754 cases, La Paz 9655, Cochabamba 6406, Beni 5092, Tarija 2483, Oruro 2211, Chuquisaca 1605, Pando 1204 and Potosí 1172. The official report includes the number of new fatalities on 19 July 2020: 45 (Santa Cruz 17, Cochabamba 15, La Paz 5, Chuquisaca 5, Potosí 2 and Tarija 1). This increases the nationwide total number of fatalities to 2151.

Tasks

1. Monitoring and technical assistance in the ecological production
2. Support the ecological production monitoring and technical assistance programs for new agroforestry plots: designation of the plots, implementation of the agroforestry system, harvest, post-harvest activities.
3. Help organizing meetings aimed at teaching good production practices.
4. Support the ecological production monitoring and technical assistance programs for ongoing agroforestry plots.

Required competences

• Experience in agroecological production development
• Work experience with young people and/or adults and women.
• Social sensitivity and empathy
• Organizational skills
• Ability to adapt to different cultures
• Summarizing and writing skills

Selection Criteria

Applications are made directly within the sending organisation, please check out the how-to apply section.
Eligibility and exception criteria
The candidate for EU Aid Volunteers must be a citizen of the EU or a third-country national who is a long-term resident in an EU Member State and must have a minimum age of 18 years.

No candidate will be discriminated according to his or her race, religion, gender or financial status during the selection.

Minimum Requirements

• Degree in agronomy
• Work experience in rural areas
• Fluent in spoken (essential) and written (desirable but not essential) Spanish
• Good knowledge of English

Learning Opportunities

The volunteer will be offered various training during his/her deployment. Two per year will be organized within the volunteer program. Other ones will be organized by the institution as well as the partners. The work will require constant self-training, so studying moments will be provided within the work schedule to read and study key documents. The volunteer is given information about short educational courses provided by museums or cultural centres. Such courses are usually lectured about the Bolivian culture, dance classes, music courses, etc.

Working and Living Conditions

All offices are in compliance with the biosecurity protocols established by the Ministry of Labor at the national level. All working teams have adopted internal office practices to protect everyone’s health. Furthermore, COVID-19 insurance has been acquired for emergencies. The insurance could also cover the volunteer.

Field activities have been affected by the pandemic. Only strictly necessary trips are made and all activities are carried out on digital platforms. This way of working will remain so until the quarantine restrictions established by the national and sub-national governments are lifted.

Secure accommodation in safe areas will be provided to the volunteer. Rent, basic furniture and services (water, electricity, gas and internet) will be covered by the project.

The programme covers the following costs:

1. Pre-departure training with the European Commission: transport, food and accommodation
2. Pre-departure training with the sending organisation: transport, food and accommodation
3. International return travel to the deployment country
4. Local transport between project sites
5. Insurance during the duration of the project
6. Accommodation.
7. Vaccines and medical check-ups
8. Visa
9. Monthly allowance: 457,36 euros
10. Reintegration allowance: 100 euros per months of service to be paid upon return

Meals and personal transportation are the responsibility of the volunteer. For more questions contact the organization see ‘contact details’ below’

All residential sessions will be conducted respecting the current norms to prevent the spread of COVID 19 (physical distancing, use of face masks, hygiene measures, etc). Measures will be updated regularly and volunteers will be informed before the training about specific restrictions.

Interview Process

Only shortlisted candidates will be notified and invited for an on-line interview. Interviews will be held in Spanish with representatives from the sending and hosting organisations. Suitable candidates will be proposed for the preliminary EU Aid Volunteers training ( online and in-presence sessions, which are part of the selection process). Please note that multiple candidates are preselected for a single position and proposed for the EU Aid Volunteers training. This is to ensure that, for each position, substitute volunteers may be chosen to replace the candidate in case he or she resigns or is no longer available. The final selection takes places after all preselected candidates complete the training.

Expected date decision on the outcome

30/11/2020

CONTACT DETAILS

More information and all of the important document needed to apply can be found on this page. Candidates shall send the following documents to volontari@aspem.org by September 12, 2020:

1. Application form in Spanish
2. self-assessment questionnaire in Spanish
3. CV Europass with photo in Spanish
4. Shortlisting and interviews will be carried out in September 2020

This is the official page where you can apply: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/echo/eu-aid-volunteers_en/senior-eu-aid-volunteer-agronomy-specialist-bolivia

This announcement was initially posted by enrica in our FB group

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