The project EVS4ALL aims to take a first step in the implementation of a ‘European Year of Volunteering for Everyone’, as described in the manifesto "We are Europe! Manifesto for rebuilding Europe from the bottom up" (www.manifest-europa.eu). Within the framework of Erasmus+ Youth in Action and based on the manifesto the project reaches out for the following objectives: (1) the inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities that are so far underrepresented in European voluntary services (2) the involvement of and outreach to further stakeholders to engage in EVS in order to enlarge the capacities of volunteer programmes in Europe; as well as, (3) the promotion of EVS, and specifically the idea of a more inclusive EVS, by using a widespread communication and dissemination strategy. During this pilot project, experienced EVS organisations and third parties (foundations and civil society organizations who are active in the sector of European and national voluntary services) from 6 European countries will build long-term partnerships in order to exchange best practices and pool resources, experience and skills in the domain of social and mobility inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities. Based on prior experiences and an extensive analysis, the partner organisations will set up common quality criteria for the inclusion of the target group in cross-border voluntary services. As a first step and pilot testing stage, the experienced voluntary partner organisations will set up together 12 short-term voluntary services of 2 weeks (blended learning activities) for young volunteers and mentors, which take into account the specific needs of persons with fewer opportunities. The mentors will receive training beforehand in order to get to know the hosting projects and to plan carefully the use of digital learning for the short term voluntary services during the preparation, implementation and evaluation of the activities. The results will lead to the creation of a practical guide about how to use digital learning to support the learning processes of the target group in volunteer activities. As a second step, the individual experiences will be analysed and evaluated carefully by all partner organisations in order to draw conclusions and to design together new European volunteer activities which take into account the experiences and findings and which involve the foundations actively into the upcoming projects. The involvement of the third parties will be looked at individually based on each organisation’s needs and possibilities. The project will be combined in this phase with further key action 1 EVS activities applied by the EVS partner organisations of the consortium. At least 24 pilot EVS activities (3 to 6 months) for young people with fewer opportunities will be prepared, implemented and evaluated accordingly, involving all partners. Journalists will report about the participating volunteers’ experiences in the host countries. A publication of interviews, the “Participants in Profile”, will document the volunteers’ gained experiences to mainstream the impact of cross-border voluntary services on their sense of belonging to Europe. In order to enlarge current and future European voluntary programmes, the project reaches out to more stakeholders from the fields of youth policy, civil society, media, economy, etc. Special focus will be put on the dissemination and exploitation of the project’s results to multiply its impact on the current Erasmus+ programme and the future programme generation, e.g. by organising a final conference (multiplier event) at the end of project.
The project EVS4ALL aimed to take a first step in the implementation of a ‘European Year of Volunteering for Everyone’, as described in the manifesto "We are Europe! Manifesto for rebuilding Europe from the bottom up". Within the framework of Erasmus+ Youth in Action and based on the manifesto the project reached out for the following objectives: (1) the inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities that are so far underrepresented in European voluntary services (2) the involvement of and outreach to further stakeholders to engage in EVS in order to enlarge the capacities of volunteer programmes in Europe; as well as, (3) the promotion of EVS, and specifically the idea of a more inclusive EVS, by using a widespread communication and dissemination strategy. During this pilot project, 14 experienced EVS organisations and third parties (foundations and civil society organisations who are active in the sector of European and national voluntary services) from 6 European countries built long-term partnerships in order to exchange best practices and pool resources, experience and skills in the domain of social and mobility inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities. Based on prior experiences and an extensive analysis, the partner organisations set up common quality criteria for the inclusion of the target group in cross-border voluntary services. As a first step, the partners prepared small pre-studies/reviews in their countries identifying the barriers to volunteering for the target group by taking into account the national realities of barriers.They engaged in consortium meetings and discussions with youth workers and experts, including with their respective national stakeholders, and analysed and evaluated carefully the experiences and gained knowledge. As a result, the partners developed guidelines for implementing inclusive EVS mobility projects to be subsequently tested in short-term EVS mobilities. As a second step, the partner organisations designed together new European volunteer projects as blended learning activities which took into account the experiences and findings and which involved the foundations actively. The involvement of the third parties was looked at individually based on each organisation’s needs and possibilities. The partners aimed to explore how European mobility can be combined with digital learning and how that can be an asset for EVS projects engaging young people with fewer opportunities. Sending and hosting mentors of the involved partner organisations received a staff training in order to get to know each other and to plan carefully together the use of digital learning in short term voluntary services during the preparation, implementation and evaluation of the activities. The EVS4ALL project was combined in this phase with further Key Action 1 EVS projects applied by the EVS partner organisations of the consortium in the different countries. Altogether, 20 pilot short term EVS activities for young people with fewer opportunities were prepared, implemented and evaluated accordingly. Upon the completion of the EVS mobilities, Volonteurope/Volonteering Matters and IKAB-Bildungswerk collected and analysed feedback from the partner organisations by using questionaires and interviews with volunteers and mentors which resulted into two different outputs: (A) Towards a More Inclusive Europe - The European Voluntary Service for All: A set of European Policy Recommendations aimed at national and European policy-makers, as well as National Agencies of Erasmus+ and national actors responsible for national citizen services, which set out guidelines on how to give more priority to young people with fewer opportunities to participate in the European Voluntary Service, thus exercising their mobility rights as EU citizens. (B) Blended Mobilities - Discovering Digital Learning: A practical guide about how to use digital learning to support the learning processes of the target group in volunteer activities. The EVS4ALL project employed a widespread communication and dissemination strategy: During the life time of the project, specific emphasis was given to the promotion and visibiltiy of EVS as such. The online publication "Volunteers' Voices” documents the personal stories of the EVS4ALL volunteers throughout their voluntary service abroad to mainstream the impact of cross-border voluntary services on their sense of belonging to Europe. The project results were presented in six local/national multiplier events and one international multiplier event (final conference) to stakeholders from the fields of youth policy, civil society, youth work and media to multiply its impact on the current Erasmus+ programme and the future programme generation. Impressions of the final conference were recorded in a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cyugZAdWQk).