Volunteering and Organisational Development and Sustainability

Background Coordinated by Centre Culturel Espéranto Toulouse(France), in partnership with Kosmo Strategio ltd. (United Kingdom), Bunta Esperanto-Asocio (Italy), Deutscher Esperanto-Bund e.V. - Filiale für Weiterbildung und Kultur (Germany), the Esperanto Society of Bialystok (Poland) and TEJO, the World Youth Esperanto Organisation (Netherlands), this project aimed at strengthening the sustainable development of organisations by improving projects to host young volunteers. Within the partnership, and in many associations, activities are often based on the work of volunteers who lack the tools and appropriate skills, which hampers their associative development. When it takes place, it remains limited, fragile and unsustainable. Furthermore, some partners have developed the reception of young volunteers within the framework of programmes such as the European Solidarity Corps or the International Civil Service, programmes which are still often unknown and underused. Improving the reception and follow-up of volunteers through better training of volunteers, international collaboration, a smoother transfer of knowledge and skill empowerment would make it possible to support more sustainable associative development. Objectives This 14-month partnership project (extended to 20 months due to the COVIM-19 pandemic) aimed at: - facilitating the exchange of good practice between organisations from different backgrounds - strengthening the skills of volunteers through training, international experience and peer-to-peer learning - motivating new volunteers in each organisation to engage in hosting volunteers; - facilitating the transfer of knowledge within each organisation, thus creating more sustainable organisations; - providing appropriate materials that can be reused by other volunteers and other actors in the organisational field or around volunteering; - improving the quality of the hosting of volunteers; - raising (better) awareness of volunteer hosting programmes (International Civil Service and European Solidarity Corps); - creating opportunities for partnerships between organisations focusing on international volunteering. Implementation As the Covid-19 pandemic was still very intense at the beginning of the project, the first activities took place mainly online (February 2021: working day to organise the project, the timetable and the sub-themes to be dealt with; June 2021: first public presentation by Zoom; monthly online meetings throughout the life of the project). For face-to-face activities, six transnational meetings took place in the partner countries: Italy (August 2021), Germany (October 2021), Poland (December 2021), France (March 2022), United Kingdom (May 2022), Netherlands (August 2022). All meetings were dedicated to specific sub-themes related to the main topic, such as organisational development, international volunteering, volunteer and organisational needs, mentoring and coaching of volunteers, language support, group dynamics and conflict management. Between the meetings, working groups collaborated remotely on different tools and documents. Throughout the project, several presentations of the project themes were offered, both face-to-face and online, through different communication channels. Achievements The exchange of good practice, training and workshops offered during the meetings helped to develop participants' skills and to initiate or strengthen non-formal education and transfer routines within each organisation. Implemented by online group work, a number of tools and training materials were created, collected or translated: - to raise (better) awareness of volunteering programmes, - to facilitate the setting up of new hosting projects, - for the selection, hosting, mentoring and follow-up of volunteers. The creation of a website, volontulado.net, has made it possible to make these tools available to all, and to provide useful information and documents to young people and organisations. This website, together with an application for a new Erasmus+ project in October 2022, has led to the creation of a network for mutual support and promotion of volunteering, which goes well beyond the initial partnership. Concrete results also include the establishment of new collaborations, such as a joint language course and new International Civil Service missions.