Study Visit on Volunteers' Management and Networking

The Study Visit will last for 3 full days (arrival on 28/3/2022 and departure on 1/4/2022). At the beginning of the Study Visit, participants will share expectations and contributions, will get to know each other, and break the ice using non-formal education activities, thus fostering the creation of a cooperative and proactive group environment. Then we will visit at least 5 CSOs discovering good practices and establishing new partnerships. 

Both the participants and the visited organsations will get an explanation of the GloRe Certification System and will be asked to contribute and participate in the process. 

Participants’ profile:

The Study Visit is addressed to members with decision-making power within Civil Society Organisations (NGOs) that are active or very interested in:

• the recognition of CSOs at the public and institutional level; 
• the management of volunteers and the implementation of innovative volunteering programs; 
• the implementation of specific measures to help volunteers and young people to recognize their learning process and eventually to certify it; 
• the establishment of long-term cooperation between Turkish and European CSOs; 
• being actively involved in the next steps of the project and in future cooperation with the other CSOs.

Minimum level B1 of spoken English and B2 of English comprehension is required.

Tasks of the participants:

• Prepare a short presentation of their organisation in English,
• Personally participate or involve another staff member of your organisation in a 4-hrs Online Technical Training to learn how GloRe works the in March 2022 (date/time to be defined),
• Share at least 1 content about the project on the organisation’s social media channels.

Covid-19 measures:

All participants will need to have the Green Pass, thus will need to be vaccinated and/or to have been infested over the last 6 months. The project will cover the costs for all the needed Covid tests. However, the final status and requirements will be clarified at a closer date to the study visit since Covid-19 related measures may change.

Brief Info About the Project, Certification Platform and the GloRe Network:

The project: Euro-Turkish Civil Society Recognition (EUROTUREC): "EUROTUREC” (ref num. CSD-VI/372) is supported by the EU Programme “Supporting Civil Society Dialogue Between EU and Turkey Grant Scheme (CSD-VI)”. The aim of the Program is to foster cooperation between the Turkish and European Civil Society. EUROTUREC is the follow-up of GloCal Recognition (CSD-V/397) and it aims at fostering the recognition and establish long-term cooperation between Turkish and European CSOs.

The main concrete objectives are:

• reinforce partnerships and create concrete support to foster cooperation opportunities between Turkish and European CSOs;
• further development of certification-and-support tools for volunteers and CSOs’ staff;
• train organisations’ key members in volunteers’ management, networking and project development;
• increase the number of CSOs and of young people benefitting from the GloRe system and network;
• reinforce the network internal governance fostering a sense of belonging and reliability;
• boost the recognition of involved CSOs and the civil society ecosystem through activities of analysis, networking and dissemination.

The Certification platform

It is a certification platform that allows both international and local volunteers to receive a certificate with recognition of the soft skills they acquired while volunteering.  The latest version of the platform, launched in March 2021, enables users to get a certificate either in English, Turkish, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese. Volunteers have the possibility to go through 26 e-learning modules that help them in assessing their level in each soft skill (the ones certified by the platform) and in creating a short dossier about their learning. At the end of the process, the host organisation will validate the certificate, taking responsibility for approving the information on it. The platform is complementary to other certifications as Youthpass and is meant to provide volunteers with a flexible and reliable certificate while investing a few hours in it. The certificate is recognised internationally by the members of The GloRe Network international community and by several educational and public institutions.