International volunteering at Kiwanis Europe

We are looking for 2 volunteers (F/M/X) between 18 and 30 who wish to support our organisation for one year in our European office in Ghent, Belgium,

• one person to succeed our current Italian volunteer in September 2024
• one person to succeed our current Ukraïne volunteer in September 2024

As volunteers, all your costs are covered by the European Programme 'European Solidarity Corps' (ESC), and by our organisation.
The main purpose is that you bring an added value to our organisation, and that you learn from this experience as a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity.

We are open for all young people, aged between 18 and 30 years to candidate, from a country that is a participating country in the programme:
• all Member states of the European Union (EU)
• non-EU participating countries Iceland, Rep. of North Macedonia, Liechtenstein
• EFTA country Norway
• Partner countries neighbouring the EU that have an agreement with the EU (such as Albania, Bosnia i Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Ukraine...).

The programme is co-financed by the European Union, so we are sorry that we cannot accept candidates from other countries such as Asian countries, the US, Australia,... as they are not eligible for the ESC programme.
The UK and Switzerland do not participate in this programme. Due to the war in Ukraine, Russia is excluded from participating in the ESC project.

We can select one volunteer that need a visa. The other volunteer, we prefer not in need of a visa, coming from a EU country.

For the volunteer needing a visa, we will need to obtain a Belgian resident permit, which is the combination of a visa and a special work permit for international volunteers. This procedure is called the "Single Permit".
We will manage this procedure, so as volunteer, you don't need to obtain a visa by yourself.
Proof of a blanc criminal records, a health certificate and some other documents will be requested from the selected volunteer in order to obtain this Single Permit.
For procedural reasons, it it takes too long to obtain this permit, we can technically split the ESC project into a short-term 90 days activity (visa-free, while waiting for the Single permit), followed by long term 9 months activity (visa-mandatory), in total also max. 365 days.

Young people often want to know what prospects they have at the end of the academic year, looking towards September or October, after the summer break. As we aim to start with new volunteers in September or October, we also want to finalize the selection process before the summer vacation, hoping that selected volunteers remain committed to their choice. We know from experience that this is not always easy.

As an organization, we strive to provide opportunities to young people, even if they come from countries with visa regulations, which typically take about three months to process. Therefore, we ask all young people who are genuinely interested in our project to remain committed once they have been selected.