"Mentoring for Inclusion" is a project with 5 European partners (Spain, Italy, Greece, Macedonia and Ireland) working with volunteers from lesser-privileged backgrounds within the European Solidarity Corps. The project was born after the identification of a particular need in all partner organisations to strengthen the skills of their workers. The main objectives of the project are: -Improve the key competences of coordinators/tutors/supervisors of the support and hosting organisations of volunteers with fewer opportunities, so that they can carry out the tasks of preparation/training, mentoring, supervision and evaluation in an efficient way and in line with the learning and development objectives of each volunteer -To increase the commitment of the partner organisations, in order to facilitate and increase the participation in the ESC Programme of participants with fewer opportunities -Exchange good practices, tools and methodologies among partner organizations to send, host and coordinate projects with volunteers with fewer opportunities and special needs. -To create methodological tools to support the development of the activities of coordinators/tutors/supervisors of inclusion volunteers. -To create a network of organizations from five countries that promote the training, preparation and management of volunteers with fewer opportunities, both locally, nationally and internationally. The main activities are: -Preparatory actions: administrative management of the project, preparation activities and coordination between partners Transnational Coordination Meeting (November 2020): Dublin, Ireland. First face-to-face meeting of the partners for this project, necessary to define the dissemination and visibility activities and to create the tools to measure the impact and evaluate the different phases of the Project. -Local Activities I (October 2020-February 2021) : Creation of the tools, analysis of the situation in each country, identification of the existing tools and methodologies used in each organisation for the coordination, mentoring and evaluation of inclusion volunteers, creation and analysis of the profile of inclusion volunteers, identification of individualised learning and development needs, identification of good practices, systematisation of results, selection and preparation of the participants in the Seminari and design of the programme and content of the activities of the International Seminar. -International Seminar (March 2021): Italy Seminar for coordinators, tutors and/or supervisors of volunteers in the framework of the CES programme, coming from contexts with fewer opportunities, in order to create a space for the exchange of experiences, tools and good practices, which facilitate and improve the daily work with volunteers with fewer opportunities. The duration will be 5 days (plus one day of travel), where three participants will assist with the roles of coordinators/tutors/supervisors of each of the partner organizations, and two facilitators from the coordinating organization. -Local activities II: The good practices, tools exchanged and new ones created during the Seminar will be validated at a local level, both with the rest of the people who make up the teams of the partner organizations, as well as with volunteers with fewer opportunities with whom they work. During this phase, each of the partners will also have to organize a visibility activity where they will share these tools and good practices with other local volunteer organizations. Final Conference (September 2021): Malaga, Spain Intellectual results: Creation, writing of the content and design of a booklet where all the material and information exchanged will be compiled, as well as all the intellectual products generated throughout the project in its different phases, translated into the 5 languages of the partners and the creation of a video compilation with photographs and videos of all the activities carried out throughout the project for a greater and better dissemination and multiplication of results, facilitating their replication. This will allow its impact to be both at local, regional and international level, as it will be easily replicable thanks to the tangible results.
The main objectives of the project were: 1.To improve the key competences of coordinators/tutors/supervisors of organisations supporting and hosting volunteers with fewer opportunities, so that they can perform the tasks of preparation/training, mentoring, monitoring and evaluation efficiently and in line with the learning and development objectives of each volunteer; 2. To increase the commitment of partner organisations, in order to facilitate and increase the participation in the ETUC Programme of participants with fewer opportunities; 3. To exchange good practices, tools and methodologies among partner organisations for sending, hosting and coordinating projects with volunteers with fewer opportunities and special needs; 4.To create methodological tools to support the development of the activities of coordinators/tutors/supervisors of inclusion volunteers; 5.To create a network of organisations from five countries that promote the training, preparation and management of volunteers with fewer opportunities, at local, national and international level.
The main reason we had to develop this project is to create the best possible context within the volunteering projects for young people who, due to their socio-educational, geographical or economic environment or situation, have fewer opportunities to leave their country or city to participate in an international programme, especially in the educational field, to receive training and treatment corresponding to their needs and realities. All the partner organisations have been working for several years (hosting and sending) with volunteers from this context, which has led us to identify a need to provide specific training and combine concepts, synergies, tools and methodologies to entities with which we have previously collaborated in volunteer inclusion projects, both in sending and hosting volunteers. We also sought to raise awareness among the local population about the importance of volunteering and to show that anyone with interest and motivation can carry out volunteer work, regardless of their social or physical condition, race, language or level of education.