NowGen Volunteers NL 2026

This year, European Volunteering is celebrating its 30th birthday. This marks three decades of young people travelling abroad and making a positive impact on society. To celebrate this milestone and gather insights for the future of European Volunteering, we are looking to connect with today’s volunteers – based on your experience, how can we ensure that European Volunteering continues to align with your motivation, needs and wishes?

This activity is therefore designed to volunteers with recent transnational volunteering experience.

Through creating a consultative space, this activity aims to make sure your voice will be heard and can influence the volunteering landscape in the future. We will connect specifically to topics that are currently being discussed by experts and policy makers.

At the same time, we also want to inspire you to continue your solidarity journey. Participating in this activity will give you a chance to think about what that means for you and which steps you can take to transform your dreams and amibtions into actions.

This activity is taking place within the framework of a partnership between 16 National Agencies and 3 SALTOs Resource Centres accross the EU who are implementing a constellation of activities aiming at advocating for and creating better conditions for EU Youth Volunteering in Europe and beyond.

This event is a unique opportunity for former volunteers to influence the work of this partnership of National Agencies and SALTOs.

Key objectives of the activity:

• Exchange experiences with peers from different volunteering schemes about the impact of your volunteering activities, the obstacles you faced and the way you contributed to the community.
• Enhance the potential of European Volunteering by sharing concrete feedback and propositions for change and contribute to the work of organisations, National Agencies, SALTOs and the European Commission.
• Explore how to make your volunteering journey last—personally and socially

Methodology

To make sure that the participants get the best out this experience, this activity brings together two main components:

Consultation & Co-Creation:

• Participants will engage in interactive sessions with peers as well as representatives of national and international organisations (e.g. National Agency, European Commission) where they will be invited to give feedback, exchange insights, and contribute with ideas to enhance and evolve the volunteering schemes in their countries. Your voice will help shape future opportunities for young people and can influence the new programme generation after 2027!
   
• The outcomes of this consultation will be shared by relevant stakeholders (European Commission and Parliament, National Agencies and SALTOs Resource Centres, European Solidarity Corps organisations, volunteering networks etc.) and will be taken onboard in policy-related events happening later in 2026.

Training & Empowerment:

• Get ready for an exciting experience! During this activity, you'll dive into inspiration activities by connecting with local organisations active in the field of volunteering. This is your chance to explore, learn, and make an impact!
   
• Based on your needs the trainer team will make sure to offer hands-on workshops and activities that help you further develop your competences related to e.g. advocacy, participation and civic engagement.

Participants’ profile

The event aims to work with 20 to 25 young people :

• Aged from 18 to 30 years
• Who completed a volunteering activity (both short and long term) within a transnational volunteering scheme between 2020 and 2026 (EVS, European Solidarity Corps, French Service civique, Belgian Service Citoyen; Freiwilliges Umweltjahr, Italian Servizio Civile Nazionale etc.).

Training team

This activity will be facilitated by two experienced trainers:

• Sosthène Deshoullières-Delbos (France): experienced trainer, works within an European Solidarity Corps organisation as project coordinator, mentor and trainer
• Floris Muller (Netherlands): experienced trainer, facilitates trainings for international volunteers and is actively engaged within the youth sector

Practicalities & Programme

• The participants will be hosted in a youth hostel in The Hague in shared rooms.
• Accommodation and boarding (three meals per day) during the activity dates will be covered by the organisers in the venue. Travel expenses and eventual visa costs will be covered by the sending National Agencies.
• Participants are expected to arrive on Monday 5th October before dinner time (18:00) and departure is planned on Friday 9th October after lunch.
• To prepare the programme according to your needs and do some review/follow-up, you may be asked to participate in online meetings before and after the activity. This will be communicated to you well in advance

We are looking to select participants who provide genuine answers to the below questions. Length of your answers or grammar are not important to us. We warmly invite you to use your own words .