Initiating the Project Café in 2019, we intended to bring young people of diverse backgrounds together to work on SCI’s main strategic goals outlined in the Service Civil International Strategic Plan 2015-2019: 1) to inspire and motivate people to have impact in the world and 2) to increase people’s sense of belonging to a global community. SCI believes that both stimulating solidarity and valuing diversity are necessary fuels for society to be able to live in mutual respect and peace. Organising volunteer activities all over the world, SCI often experiences that ideas at grassroot level do not reach fruition and come into practice, as often a general lack of knowledge or experience about project concept, implementation and follow-up hinders ideas initiated by activists and volunteers. This lack and inconsistency damage the nature of volunteer actions on national and local level. Past cross-national collaborations showed a lack of experience in assessing needs and target groups, in formulating precise aims and objectives, in the acquisition of resources towards a structural implementation and in managing own capacities. The Project Café in its original concept aimed to help rectify this deficit by gathering young people from SCI branches, groups, partners and contacts from across Europe and deliver an in-depth training cycle, which should enable participants to share their ideas with others, to gather innovative practices, to build networks and to learn from one another. The Project Café was to support networking amongst young people, activists and partners to find synergies and support of current projects, as well as for future proposals for a sustainable allocation of resources. In Project Café, a pool of multipliers was to be trained and empowered to initiative new project ideas and to carry them out smoothly in each of the project partners’ organisations. The Project Café further aimed to provide a platform for sharing best practices and methods of project management and to demonstrate entrepreneurial approaches to overcoming the phenomenon of wasted resources in international volunteering. In addition, a much-needed support network for young people and volunteers was to be established as a sustainable, permanent support network to foster a culture of innovative and creative ideas. In the long term, the aim was to improve cooperation and introduce entrepreneurial innovations to foster a fruitful exchange of innovative and creative ideas. Objectives: - Mapping, analysing, identifying lacks of insufficiency, and gaining an improved understanding of the movement's needs towards boosting SCI’s environment for self-initiated projects and drawing conclusions to strategically overcome inconsistencies of project partners. - Providing a platform of exchange and inspiration to bring together young people, activists and partners to set up a network of support, exchange and assess ideas and approaches. - Sharing of good practices from national and international project groups and experience on the subject from the sector of Social Entrepreneurship to equip the participants, and therefore support the network of partners. - Bringing together a variety of partners in the support network, the project targets the transition from an endorsement of ideas into a precise design of a project approaches. - Systemic support of project ideas in their development and in the acquisition of resources towards an overall implementation strategy. - Equipping participants to monitor project progress, to evaluate the project outcomes and to measure its impact in order to prepare improved solutions to fulfill local needs and possibly prepare follow-up projects. - To overcome significant regional imbalances in experience and capacities, involvement of volunteers and partner organisations from Eastern Europe and the Balkan region to strengthen branches, groups and partners in the field. - Boosting of professional skills and employability by providing opportunities for individuals to improve their skills, by empowering them with new experience, knowledge and planning abilities while gaining a European perspective. - Facilitating team building and learning in a supportive environment. - Impression on volunteers the need to promote European values such as cooperation, democratic ways of working and respect for human rights. The in-depth Project Café Training Cycle included 3 activities: Activity 1: First Project Management Training - Germany Activity 2: Second Training – Serbia Activity 3: Evaluation Platform –Bulgaria