Active Citizenship through Volunteering

Aims & objectives

1. Improve the communication skills of 29 youth workers during 9 mobility days to promote the
importance and benefits of volunteering and to attract new volunteers.

2. Develop a common perspective for the 9 NGOs about the selection process of new volunteers
by sharing good practices, examples, jointly finding solutions and ideas during the mobility and
create a recruitment guide, during the first 2 months after the mobility.

3. Increase the understanding about active citizenship of 29 youth workers by promoting volunteering, Erasmus+ and ESC as tools for social participation during the 9 mobility days.

4. Build partnerships within the participant NGOs during the duration of the project by creating
an online HUB on the topic of active citizenship through volunteering for future projects and
develop minimum 3 common projects.

Target group & international/intercultural composition of the group & team

The training involved 29 youth workers aged 18+ from the partners NGOs' staff (volunteers, social workers, educators, counselors, trainers and other related staff implementing non-formal activities), actively involved in promoting active citizenship and volunteering in their communities. The participants came from Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Greece, Netherlands, Portugal, Croatia and Hungary.

Training methods used & main activities

Our daily program was divided in 4 - 1:30 hours sessions, 1 hours reflection/evaluation and inter-cultural evenings. In terms of NFE methods (indoor-outdoor), we have used in a holistic approach:
- Energisers before each session;
- Plenary inputs by trainers/experts;
- Guest speakers/study visits - opportunity to listen and observe how ‘others do it’;
- Presentations of participants;
- Digital content creation sessions (videos, posters, e-guide);
- Topic-related board games;
- Team-building, ice-breaking activities;
- One-to-one, group work based on discussion, debates, brainstorming, sharing ideas;
- Learning by doing - especially when testing the tools and undertaking practical exercises;
- Role-play, world-café, forum theater;
- Study cases, problem solving scenarios;
- Cultural awareness activities;
- Open spaces sessions where participants choose their topics of interests;
- Thematic board games;
- Daily reflection/evaluations of the learning process.

Outcomes of the activity

Facebook page of the project - https://www.facebook.com/activecitizenshipthroughvolunteering

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

I was the main trainer within the project.

I worked on this training for 8 days as a full time trainer.