YOUNGETEERS - The Manual for Volunteer Management in Culture During the Crisis

Aims of the tool

- Familiarise youth workers with volunteering in culture
- Offer tools and methods for crisis management in connection with volunteer management
- Introduce virtual volunteering
- Enhance communication skills to build collaborative environment
- Support volunteers' personal development and creativity

Description of the tool

The YOUNGETEERS Manual is a guidebook, a step-by-step document that provides assistance to all organisations, institutions and non-formal groups that engage volunteers. It focuses on basics of volunteer management, volunteering in culture and specificities of volunteering during the crisis. It also gives answers about the role of volunteers in culture, introduces virtual volunteering, enhances personal development of volunteers, and gives instructions how to support volunteers’ creative and communication skills. It discusses crisis management and offers an example of eduLARP as a way to prepare the volunteers for challenging situations of crisis.

It was created in solidarity by volunteers, youth workers, psychologists, cultural workers, educators, community workers and project managers. Their knowl¬edge and experience from volunteering and cultural and creative sectors and their wholehearted devotion to work¬ing with the youth is woven into its each page.

The manual is a part of the project “Young Volunteers in the Cultural Events - Lessons Learned from COVID -19 Crisis” (acronym: YOUNGETEERS), implemented by Subjekt d.o.o (Croatia) in partnership with Fondacija “Novi Sad – Evropska prestonica kulture” (Serbia), Timișoara 2021 - European Capital of Culture Association (Romania), Fundacja edukacyjna Nausika (Poland), Larpifiers AMKE (Greece), Municipal Foundation Plovdiv 2019 and Cooperativa Sociale Immaginaria a r. l. Onlus (Italy) and funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Programme, under the contract number: 2020-1-HR01-KA227-YOU-094777.
The idea for this project emerged in 2020, when COVID-19 crisis paralysed cultural and creative sectors and when many of the existing volunteer programmes in culture were not able to maintain their regular activities since the resources were limited and physical involve¬ment was restricted. That is when a group of volunteering enthusiasts gathered and decided to dedicate their time and effort to finding innovative ways to improve the qual¬ity of volunteer programmes in culture and increase their resilience to crises.