We, the peo­ple of Vo­rarl­berg, are gen­er­ally con­sid­ered to be rather re­served when it comes to mak­ing new friend­ships, BUT at the same time, we are very ac­tive and pas­sion­ate about en­gag­ing in our clubs, vol­un­teer­ing, and hob­bies. En­thu­si­asm for a cause brings peo­ple to­gether, SO here are a few sug­ges­tions on how you can get to know us bet­ter:

Hel­mut Loitz tu­tors stu­dents at the Lern­café Lauter­ach.

Al­most ten years ago, Hel­mut Loitz dis­cov­ered a re­port in the mu­nic­i­pal news­pa­per about the Lern­café Lauter­ach, where vol­un­teer tu­tors were being sought. In this case, vol­un­teers were found right away, as only a few days later, the now 78-year-old began his vol­un­teer work, a task that con­tin­ues to ex­cite him to this day.

Even as a re­tiree, one can still have fa­vorite sub­jects, and in Hel­mut Loitz’s case, these are his­tory and math­e­mat­ics. “I al­ways had fun with math­e­mat­ics as a stu­dent, and it brings me joy to pass on my knowl­edge to the stu­dents at the Lern­café,” says the Lauter­ach na­tive. Eng­lish and Ger­man are some­times more chal­leng­ing for him, he adds with a smile. “But it keeps me men­tally fit to en­gage with sub­jects that I wouldn’t need in every­day life.”

Hel­mut Loitz, who worked as an in­sur­ance ex­pert for a total of 55 years and was also in­volved in the fam­ily busi­ness, wants to pass on im­por­tant val­ues to the chil­dren and teenagers be­yond the class­room: “If you work hard and are dili­gent, you will suc­ceed in life!” He also al­ways ad­vises his stu­dents to focus dur­ing school lessons. “That way, they will have less catch-up work later and will find things eas­ier over­all.”

Photo (c)Elke Kager, Caritas Vorarlberg

Hel­mut Loitz sees his in­volve­ment in the Lern­café as en­rich­ing for every­one in­volved. “It’s won­der­ful to see how quickly the chil­dren make progress. When you meet them at the start of the school year and then ob­serve how they de­velop pos­i­tively by Christ­mas, it’s re­mark­able.” There are often per­sonal en­coun­ters in the town, where Hel­mut Loitz senses that he was an im­por­tant com­pan­ion on the path of for­mer Lern­café stu­dents.

Would you like to tutor children, too?

The Car­i­tas Lern­cafés are lo­cated in 16 towns across Vo­rarl­berg, from Bre­genz to Schruns. The free ser­vice is aimed at stu­dents aged 8 to 14. Vol­un­teers help chil­dren with their home­work, pre­pare them specif­i­cally for tests and exams, read to­gether, prac­tice lan­guages, or sim­ply cre­ate a joy­ful learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

Women and men in­ter­ested in con­tribut­ing their time and knowl­edge to the Lern­cafés, to make school life a lit­tle eas­ier for chil­dren, are wel­come to con­tact Nicole Nach­baur, E nicole.​nachbaur@​caritas.​at, M 0676-88420 4044, in the Vo­rarl­berg low­lands, or Denise Zech, E denise.​zech@​caritas.​at, M 0676-88420 3014, in the upper re­gion.

More de­tails at car­i­tas-vo­rarl­berg.at/lern­cafes

About volunteering at Caritas

Vol­un­teer­ing has a long tra­di­tion and high value at Car­i­tas Vo­rarl­berg. Being there for oth­ers with­out ex­pect­ing some­thing in re­turn cre­ates op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth and de­vel­op­ment for all in­volved.

What makes volunteering special?

Vol­un­teer­ing en­riches – the lives of oth­ers, but also your own.

As a vol­un­teer, you bring new per­spec­tives, life ex­pe­ri­ence, knowl­edge, and tal­ents – open­ing up new op­por­tu­ni­ties for oth­ers. And in re­turn, you re­ceive much: a smile and the feel­ing of doing some­thing mean­ing­ful. You meet peo­ple, make con­nec­tions, and gain new ex­pe­ri­ences. You ex­pand your knowl­edge and enjoy a lot of fun and joy.

How and where can you volunteer? What opportunities are there to help?

Nearly one thou­sand vol­un­teers are ac­tive in var­i­ous fields of Car­i­tas Vo­rarl­berg: whether in Lern­cafés, as so­cial or in­te­gra­tion men­tors, as read­ing part­ners, in work with peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, in hos­pice work, in carla shops and re­tail parks, or abroad, the range of pos­si­ble fields is di­verse at Car­i­tas.

The Car­i­tas vol­un­teer ex­change pro­vides easy ac­cess to this vol­un­tary en­gage­ment: whether spon­ta­neous, dig­i­tal, or reg­u­lar help, the fil­ter helps you find the op­por­tu­nity that suits you. By en­ter­ing one or more postal codes, fields of ac­tiv­ity, or avail­able week­days, you can nar­row down the search re­sults. Mul­ti­ple se­lec­tions are pos­si­ble. To the vol­un­teer ex­change.

There are also nu­mer­ous short-term op­por­tu­ni­ties, for in­di­vid­ual pro­jects or events, for ex­am­ple. Learn more on the web­site www.​fuereinand.​at.

 Photo (c)Car­i­tas Vo­rarl­berg

What other ways are there to actively spend your free time?

In this ➡️blog post, you’ll find more ideas.

https://​www.​chancenland.​at/​en/​news/​where-​can-​i-​meet-​people-​in-​vorarlberg/