What does the Federal Volunteer Service mean for us at Finkenau?

The Federal Volunteer Service (Bundesfreiwilligendienst) is a proposition for women and men in Germany to give something back to the community outside the field of employment and school – in social, ecological and cultural areas, among others.

Some of Finkenau’s facilities are approved places of service for the Federal Volunteer Service. These facilities regularly engage federal volunteers in their everyday life at the day-care centres or at all-day care in schools. The volunteers give support in taking care of the children, accompany them on excursions, carry out their own ideas for activities if desired and help out in the housekeeping domain.

More information about the Federal Volunteer Service Paritätische Freiwilligendienste can be found here.

The following Finkenau facilities employ federal volunteers

• Furtweg all-day education and support of children (Ganztägige Bildung und Bertreuung an Schulen – GBS)
• Loki Schmidt all-day education and support of children (GBS)
• Wilde Finken all-day education and support of children (GBS)
• Meerweinstraße after-school care club
• Kinderhaus Furtweg
• Alter Güterbahnhof kindergarten
• Eulennest kindergarten
• Flohkiste 2 kindergarten
• Frieberg kindergarten
• Fuhlinge kindergarten
• Hölderlinsallee kindergarten
• Mucklas kindergarten
• Sonnenschein kindergarten
• Wurzelkinder nursery

The children would love it!

Would you like to volunteer at a centre near you? Give the children some of your precious time. Whether with or for the little ones, we appreciate any kind of support. We offer you a wide range of volunteering opportunities in addition to working with the children: outside in the garden, helping in the kitchen, at the office desk or repairing things with your manual skills. No matter which area you choose – you can simply do more!

Welcoming culture

People give us their time on a voluntary basis. They offer their knowledge and skills to the Finkenau Kindergartens Foundation in order to become socially involved in our facilities. As a foundation, we value this commitment, which is why it is particularly important to us to welcome volunteers into the overall team of the facilities and to allow them to participate in the activities of the facility beyond their actual voluntary work. For us, it is also a matter of course that volunteers are invited to the organisation’s celebrations (Christmas party & company outing) as well as to internal celebrations.

Further training

Volunteers at the Finkenau Foundation have the opportunity to attend workshops on educational topics. Initially, the topics of sexual education and conflict resolution with children are available. If you are interested, you can also attend other workshops at the Lernort Finkenau centre and the regular training courses such as research and discovery, ESD, creative courses, music according to the seasons, philosophising with children or psychomotor skills.

Networking

Our volunteers are active at various locations. The foundation would like to bring the volunteers together with an exchange meeting and offer space and time for their topics. Such a meeting is organised 1-2 times a year.

Possible fields of work

In our facilities, people can take on various tasks as part of their voluntary work. The following overview provides examples of possible fields of activity:

With child:

• Accompanying excursions/ forest visits
• Gardening
• Accompaniment when travelling
• Accompaniment on excursions
• Sports activities
• Making music
• Research/ experimentation/ science
• Workshop/ handicrafts
• Creative design
• Bicycle repair
• Philosophising
• Theatre
• Introduce professions
• Community games (card and board games)
• Reading aloud
• Library visits
• Learning time help for primary school pupils
• Cooking and/or baking with primary school pupils

Without child:

• Janitorial work
• Gardening activities
• Support in the kitchen
• Office work

Advantages:

• We support journeys to the centre with a travel allowance
• Insurance cover (accident and liability insurance) is guaranteed
• Volunteers usually receive meals while they are helping out at the centre
• You are cordially invited to daycare centre parties