Excursion Day

My excursion day was at the Association for International Youth Work VIJ. They are a very small, but interesting organization. They provide resources for immigrants to find jobs and activities that they can engage into within the community. Their facility is very intimate with a room that can be divided into two for separate activities to take place. They have a garden and a small courtyard area where they can throw parties once a year with the individuals that they help. They rely heavily on volunteers with their projects. Their goal is the preservation of human rights and peaceful coexistence in diversity. I found it very impressive that they have been around since 1882.

Although, their contribution to the community is significant, from a human resource perspective I see a few flaws in their setup. Majority of their information is in the German language. If they are immigrants, then they most likely don’t speak German. After discussing this with my class and Pierre, this may be a way of them trying to introduce the language to these individuals. Also, they do help many people out and have been around for a long time, so somehow they are getting the word across.

Also, Tom Hauber was our guide and the events coordinator for the organization. So his view of the organization was a little bit one sided and my INEMA partners was trying to get the other significant information about VIJ from him. However, they were unsuccessful, because he just didn’t know. I feel that maybe someone who was familiar with the entire framework of the organization should have set in and gave some background on their operations.