We wanted to redefine our vision for voluntary service for the next few years and set goals to help us develop concrete actions in this field. We also wanted to raise awareness among young people on the importance of citizenship, civic engagement and common values while promoting their soft skills, competences and employability. The four seminars as well as the fact that most of the participants attended between 2 and all 4 seminars were intended as it could provide more possibilities for intercultural understanding and learning between young people and have them explore their European identity, while also creating transnational friendships and giving them the possibility to imagine possible future partnerships together.
We applied for this project in 2021 in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic and when European youth work was slowly starting again. Our hope and aim was to reflect about the opportunities present on our continent and inside the member states of the European Union, especially regarding long-term volunteering but also short-term and local volunteering, in order to redefine our vision for voluntary service inside of the network for the next few years. Concentrating on 4 pillars (digitalisation, solidarity, employment, sustainability), we reflected on how volunteering was impacting them but also on how they were impacting volunteering, we rose the awareness of these topics by our participants, shared input and knowledge and realise intercultural differences on these topics but also similarities. Although not specifically a topic of one of our in-person seminars, reflecting on our common European citizenship, what it means, what it entails and how present it can be in our life was transcendent to the project and helped forge closer ties between all of us. All of this combined and the knowledge of each partner increased the expertise both of the network and partners but also the expertise and knowledge of the participants.