The project “Empower Volunteering Across the Continent” aims to improve youth workers’ competences and volunteers’ management within a network of 5 organizations from 5 different countries – Italy, Romania, Peru, Madagascar and India. The coordinator has already collaborated with project’s partner organizations in short and long term volunteering.

Partners generally host foreign volunteers, involving them in their local activities. The evaluation process of these experiences has emphasized some difficulties in the main phases of a volunteering cycle project – training, mentoring, elaboration of an activity plans, monitoring of the experience – and specific training of youth workers could be a first step to acquire tools and methods to manage volunteers.

Therefore, the project aims to: 1) to Improve local youth workers’ skills and competencies in the management of international volunteers reinforcing the international dimension of youth organizations in Partner Countries; 2) to promote the recognition of volunteering in Partner Countries 3) to develop a sustainable partnership among youth organizations from different regions of the world, creating a strong network for future collaboration.

The project will target to 13 youth workers of the participating organizations’ staffs and it will impact about 36 foreign volunteers in their short and long term volunteering experiences. Main project activities will be, first of all, the implementation of 3 meetings with organizations from Partner countries to carry out a field analysis on volunteering and strategies for youth social inclusion. The results of these field analysis will contribute to define the content of the training course (mobility of youth workers) for 13 people from the partner organizations. The acquired competences and skills will be tested through the management of international summer workcamps and EVS projects implemented in the organizations.

All the activities will contribute to the production of an handbook with best practices, tools and methods to develop activities for youth and to manage international volunteers.

The handbook will be freely accessible on line and it will be exploited in the international networks active in the same field both in Europe and in Partner countries.

Participating organizations will arise the quality of their internal youth working methods and they will enforce their international dimension, their capacities to attract local volunteers and they will improve the networking at local level. Foreign volunteers will benefit of international experiences of greater quality.

Future S&LMTV projects will foresee specific steps and moments to favour volunteers’ adjustment to local community and culture and more scheduled activities plans.

Start: 01-11-2017 – End: 30-04-2019
Project Reference: 589610-EPP-1-2017-1-IT-EPPKA2-CBY-ACPALA
EU Grant: 93543.33 EUR
Programme: Erasmus+
Key Action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices
Action Type: Capacity Building for youth in ACP countries, Latin America and Asia