VOLUNTEER - KEY TO THE FUTURE

All participants are either active as volunteer in their local organisations, have completed a european or international voluntary, or are in training to do so.  As the project wants to explore the challenges which there are in the sector of volunteering, the project directly appeals to their interests.  The participants are volunteers themselves and experience these challenges first hand.  By exploring the challenges we want to enable the volunteers themselves to help tranforming the challenges into opportunities, and through this empowering them to develop their own solutions to the problems they are facing.

There is a clear red line throughout the different meetings of the projects.  The issues discussed at the first meeting will be used again during the European youth congress in the session with the policy makers.  In this way the “youth representatives” will not only be prepared for the European congress, but will also be aware they need to represent the opinions of all young people who took part in the first national meeting.  At the second national meeting, the youth representatives will report back to the local group in what way the opinions were different at national and European level.

At the different meetings we are using a wide range of methods including:

1. Energizers, icebreakers and name-games to create a group atmosphere
   
2. Plenary and group discussions
   
3. Presentations
   
4. Creative methods
   
5. Exchange market to start-off new Youth in Action projects
   
6. Intercultural evening with food, drinks and games from all participating countries
   
7. Active reviewing on the personal development of the participants
   
8. Written evaluation on the content and practicalities of the national and European meetings
   

By using this combination of methods we aim at lowering the barriers for young people to participate.  We want to engage them in a youthfull way, so by including variation in the working methods we will keep the motivation going throughout the project.  An additional bonus is that this variation will increase the fun of it.

The youth representatives taking part in all 3 the meetings, will have the strongest learning experience.  They will be able to discuss on the volunteering both in a local setting as well as an intercultural setting.  In this way they will learn to understand which issues are culturally determined, and which have a more universal nature.  Next to this they will acquire new knowledge and skills through the workshops of the European youth congress.  They will also learn how to be a multiplyer, as their role is to bring back what they’ve learned to the local level.  In this way the other volunteers of the partner promoters will learn from the project.  The project aims at giving volunteers a voice on challenges which they are facing in their voluntary engagement.  By doing so they will feel recognition for their engagement as volunteers and be motivated to strengthen this engagement.

Young people are the protagonists throughout the whole project:

1. At the first national meeting, the promoters will convene a workshop where young people connected to the organisation (volunteers) will be introduced to challenges related to volunteering.  One or two young people will be selected from this group to be the “youth representative” at the European congress.
   
2. At the European youth congress the exchange of opinions between the youth representatives themselves and with the policy makers taking part is central.  The second day the participants will get a platform to start creating their own initiatives to promote and/or support volunteering.
   
3. At the second national meeting, it are the “youth representatives” who convene the session and report back to their local youth group on their experiences.
4. After each meeting we will make an evaluation with the young people.  Their opinions will be taken into account for organising the next meetings.