Webinar - “Promoting Gender Equality by volunteering work” Venue: Online Duration: 6 days 19.-21.02.2021 & 26.-28.02.2021 Partners involved: Concordia, UK; IJGD, Germany: JAVVA, Belgium; PI Youth Association, Turkey; Solidarités Jeunesses, France; The Yellow House, UK; and Union Forum, Ukraine. Participants: 20 youth workers from partner organizations working with the support of sending and hosting volunteers Grenzenlos has been running international projects and exchanges for 70 years. In the last few years, we dedicated our training and seminars to the topics of civil courage, human rights, peace-work, and crisis management. We wanted to dedicate this training to promote gender equality by volunteering work, which is one of the main concerns and focus points not only for the European Commission but as well as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the EU Youth Goals 2020. Gender Equality has been one of the most recurrent topics in the last years, we have seen fights for the rights of women and LGTBQ+ all over the world, but there is still much and some of that can start from our organizations´ projects. With this seminar, we wanted to share experience and knowledge about how to better promote gender equality work with different organizations. We also wanted to listen, acknowledge, and learn from their understanding, difficulties, and their best practices from the volunteers and their organizations. We aimed to create a space for reflection and inclusion that supported practical ideas for group and single activities and to change working methods whenever working with these topics. In view of the different national conditions of each country and the working experience of each organization, the exchange of knowledge and experience helped organizations to better work in future projects. Through the practical opportunities during the seminar, participants had the opportunities to encounter different perspectives which will be useful for their later work. The issues we planned on addressing were: Gender-based stereotypes are often present in volunteering work. Often there is a general lack of awareness on the topic of gender and gender equality, as well as little knowledge and practical tools to deal with the subject. Still, many (young) people are interested in this topic, but meanwhile, there are not so many seminars on how to address these issues open to everyone. That is why this seminar helped expand the possibilities of young people, by focusing exactly on these issues. It provided them a (safe-)space to talk openly, share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences, which is not always possible in everyday life. The views and beliefs are often limited and stigmatized by the political, societal, and legal context people live in. In an intercultural setting it is easier to look and think outside the box, which thus leads to less intolerance and discrimination, both personally and in the activities carried out by the organizations. We wanted to address topics such as how does it feel to be a part of the LGTBQ+, a woman* or a man* at volunteering activities, which difficulties does one encounter and how to tackle them. This seminar is in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals as well as the European Youth Goals. We were not only providing them the space for self-reflection and discussion, but as well, we provided a space for creating, discussing the lack of opportunities and information for Youth Projects related to Gender equality and for them to create their own projects to be then applied in their own realities. Moreover through these activities, we discussed different tools and methods to be used in their volunteering activities. Aims and Objectives To implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals and provide thinking and future actions for promoting gender equality and women*’s development. To discuss each country’s situation about gender equality. To Promote Gender Equality activities in IVS. To introduce experience from different countries that can help women*. To share participants’ or organization’s ideas about how to promote gender equality. To interact with different Organisations that work for Gender Equality Grenzenlos has an inclusion focus within all our projects. Therefore, this training was accessible for participants with physical disabilities.