Volunteering holds an essential place in the society as well as in the economy: it is an essential act of citizenship. Volunteers and NPOs (non-profit organisations) are contributing essentially to the delivery of social services and combating social exclusion and therefore make a big contribution to build a strong and cohesive society. The European Commission estimated that volunteering contributes between 0.5- 5% to EU GDP.Additionally volunteering has also positive impact on the volunteers themselves, such as access to free learning opportunities, being active citizens, getting social recognition, gaining self-esteem, new skills and experiences. As a lot of these skills and work experiences are also useful in paid and there improve the employability of volunteers. But usually these skills are acquired incidental, occasional or indirect. What are missing are more general trainings for skills development, to be more professional and efficient in volunteering. However, this is also a problem a lot of NPOs are facing: due to the financial crisis most NGOs get even less money than before, even if there services are needed even more. In order to keep their services available POs need to work more professional, efficient and effective, as resources are scare and tasks are much more complex and challenging.With these facts in mind, the German partner GLL had developed the training concept "Professional volunteering" for volunteers and NPOs, which promotes the development of professional skills and competences (e.g. project management, communications). This training program had been pilot-tested successfully in the UK, Romania and the Czech Republic with various target groups and had been further developed in a first version of an "European format". The former partners from DE and CZ formed a new partnership with known and experienced partner organisations in their neighboring countries Austria and Slovakia to transfer the ProVol training there.Within this new partnership, they want to reach 4 objectives:a) to disseminate the European format of the training program "Professional Volunteering" to neighboring countries in central Europe and improve it.b) to cross other "borders": people with learning or mental disabilities as well as migrants and refugees with insufficient second language skills (meaning understanding and speaking the language of the country they live) usually are not engaged in volunteering and therefor miss the opportunities volunteering offers. With our project we want to develop and pilot-test an "easy language" version of our training to increase the rate volunteering of these disadvantaged target group and empower them to become more active citizens in the community they live.c) to set up a professional ProVol-network/consortium and ProVol-“franchise”-system in order to deliver high quality volunteer trainings across Europe beyond project funding.d) to improve crossborder volunteering between the four participating neighboring countries, joint volunteer projects and activities in the future.Additionally partners aim to strengthen volunteering in their respective countries by qualifying volunteers and volunteer coordinators through professional trainings, and their NPOs will profit from efficiently working employees and volunteers. Thus, the lack of resources is addressed by progressing effectiveness. On the other hand, the individual benefit for each training participant is a vital aspect of the project. Volunteers gain valuable skills they need to face challenges on the job market. The project should facilitate their attempts of consolidating their competitiveness, also through providing them a clearly structured, solid and convincing reference according to an agreed reference format. Altogether 60 volunteer coordinators and volunteers will be trained, and around 320 multipliers will be reached directly. A further developed “European” format of the ProVol-training and its handbook and pedagogical material will be pilot-tested in Slovakia and Austria, and then being translated (English, German, Czech, Slovak), produced and printed in Slovakia and Austria. A newly developed ProVol-training and handbook with relevant pedagogical material in “easy language” will be pilot-tested in Germany and Czech Republic, and after that produced and printed in the two countries.Throughout dissemination activities by the four partners and their national and international networking connections partners will distribute the manuals across Europe on their project website, in order to support volunteering across Europe and enhance professional skills development of staff in NGOs and volunteers, especially volunteers, who are disadvantaged and with little or no access to formal trainings or work experience. A kind of “franchise” system will be installed by a newly formed ProVol-network/consortium, which will deliver high quality train-the-trainer programs in the future.
Volunteering and NPOs hold an essential place in society and economy and also have a positive impact on the volunteers themselves and their employability. But usually these skills are acquired incidental, occasional or indirect. More general trainings for skills development in volunteering were missing so the German partner GLL had developed the training concept "Professional volunteering" for volunteers and NPOs. This training program had been pilot-tested successfully by volunteer organisations in the UK, Romania, and the Czech Republic with various target groups and had been further developed in a first version of a "European format". The former partners from DE and CZ (Volunteer center Usti Nad Labem) formed a new partnership with known and experienced partner organisations in their neighbouring countries Austria (eb projectmanagement, as an expert for project management) and Slovakia (Centrum Dobrovolnictva Banská Bystrica, a well-known volunteer centre) to transfer the ProVol training in these countries. Within this new partnership, they reached 4 objectives: a) Disseminating the European format of the training program "Professional Volunteering" to neighbouring countries in central Europe and improved it and adapted it to ECVET criteria. b) Crossing other "borders": people with learning or mental disabilities as well as migrants and refugees with insufficient second language skills (meaning understanding and speaking the language of the country they live in) usually are not engaged in volunteering and therefor miss the opportunities volunteering offers. With our project we developed and pilot-tested an easy language version of our training to increase the volunteering rate of these disadvantaged target group and empower them to become more active citizens in the community they live in. c) Setting up a professional ProVol network and ProVol quality system in order to deliver high quality volunteer trainings across Europe beyond project funding. d) Improving cross border volunteering between the four participating neighbouring countries, joint volunteer projects and activities in the future. Additionally, the partners aim to strengthen volunteering in their respective countries by qualifying volunteers and volunteer coordinators through professional trainings, involved NPOs benefited from efficiently working employees and volunteers. Thus, the lack of resources was addressed by progressing effectiveness. On the other hand individual participants benefited also on a personal level: Involved volunteers gained valuable skills they need to face challenges on the job market, but also in the social integration process. The project facilitated their attempts of consolidating their competitiveness, also through providing them a clearly structured, solid and convincing reference according to an agreed reference format. Altogether 76 volunteers and 31 coordinators were trained, and about 685 multipliers have been reached directly. A further developed “European” format of the ProVol training, for volunteers and volunteer coordinators was the result of a large number of managerial, volunteer, lecturing and expert hours. An additional handbook with practical recommendations for implementation plus This intensive work, supported by bilateral project meetings, has shown many needs for innovations on the subject of inclusion. Its handbook and pedagogical material was pilot-tested in Slovakia and Austria, adapted to national contexts, and then translated (English, German, Czech, Slovak), produced and printed. The newly developed ProVol training and handbook with relevant pedagogical material in easy language was pilot-tested in Germany and Czech Republic before. It also included recommendations for the practical implementation of the training. Throughout dissemination activities by the four partners and their national and international networking partners the results and experiences were distributed across Europe. On their project website results, Epale, and the EU result platform results were also disseminated, in order to support volunteering across Europe and enhance professional skills development of staff in NGOs and volunteers, especially volunteers, who are disadvantaged and with little or no access to formal trainings or work experience. A concept and memorandum of understanding for a “ProVol-Network” were developed. The newly formed "ProVol"-consortium under the umbrella of “Volonteurope” (a European wide umbrella organisation for volunteer organisations) plans to deliver high quality ProVol train-the-trainer programs and volunteer trainings in the future.