“Volunteering Life Helps Your community” was a Euro-Mediterranean training course which was organized by Solidarity Tracks in Lefkas, Greece, between 23.09.2011 – 02.10.2011. The themes of the project were connected to the European Year of Volunteering and they were volunteering in a Euro-Mediterranean context and how volunteering helps the local communities. The project involved 24 participants from 24 different organizations involved or interested in volunteering who come from France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Palestinian Territory, Tunisia, and Turkey.
The objective of the project was to involve everyone present in sharing their experiences and good practices involving various types of volunteering activities, finding strategies of better involving all parties so that the local community benefits the most, shaping a cooperation network for future projects and creating a guide to help other organizations from the Euro-Mediterranean area in implementing volunteering projects.
- The activities done during the project included:
- The setting up and presentation of an exhibition (to the participants and the local community) which presented the activities of all the involved organizations
- Presentations, discussions, brainstorming, games and workshops which showed what volunteering means and involves in and Euro-Mediterranean level, which worked on making these type of projects better in the future and which concentrated on the importance of the involvement and the benefits gained by the local community
- Visits to concrete volunteering projects on a local and regional level
- Networking games and activities which shaped the framework of future cooperation of all the participants, mainly in volunteering projects, but also in other Youth in Action and Euro Med 4 activities
- The creation of a Guide which can be used as a tool by all Euro-Mediterranean organizations who are or who wish to be involved in volunteering activities.
Our project was financed by “Youth in Action Program” and the Greek Institute for Youth.