Diversity in European Volunteering Erasmus Project

Project Title

Diversity in European Volunteering

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

Launched in November 2017, DIVE brought JEF Europe, ESN International and AEGEE Europe, three European youth networks, along with six of their local and national members. The project was based on the observation that their activities, all European by nature (support to student mobility, European integration, European active citizenship), are not allowing full participation of young people as volunteers due to several perceived or real barriers. The project aimed at identifying these barriers and collectively reflecting on how to take them down. The final goal was to make member orgnisations of JEF, ESN and AEGEE more diverse and ultimately to make European volunteering more accessible and inclusive. The organisations were supported in this journey by YES Forum, a platform of organisations working with and for young people with fewer opportunities. The organisations together worked on the topic of diversity in European volunteering.
After four Transnational Partners Meetings (in Lyon, Dubrovnik, Cagliari, and Brussels) and three trainings (in Sofia, Athens, and Malmö), the project has now finished and the organisations have succeeded in achieving the planned aim and objectives.

DIVE undoubtedly allowed to raise awareness about the topics of inclusion and diversity in the partner organisations, internally and among their members. We planted a seed: the topic was introduced in the networks. DIVE triggered the discussion within our associations. It truly was an eye-opener project, as people were not always aware that inclusion was a problem in our organisations. Moreover, we succeeded to create three tangible outputs:
– The Organisational Assessment Tool (OAT): It represents the first step to take on your path towards inclusion. This tool aims mainly at raising awareness of the topic. Indeed it triggers reflection by asking a set of questions intended to identify potential shortcomings in terms of inclusiveness.
– The Training Session Outlines (TSO’s): a series of outlines for youth workers to implement workshops related to social inclusion in their local sections.
– The Guide of Best Practices: It is a waste of time to reinvent the wheel, and although there is room for improvement in our organizations, we already have some good practices. Therefore, the partners exchanged and collected good ideas and practices that are already running in our organisations. It gave them the opportunity to share their experiences and to learn from each other. Nevertheless, we realised that all the topics were not covered. Therefore, we brainstormed together to also create new best practices. They cover the different barriers that were identified and offer easy steps to implement practices aimed at diversifying our membership.

The deliverables were developed thanks to the exchange of ideas and experiences among members of youth organisations with the help of experienced trainers and the knowledge of the YES Forum. The developed tools are available on our websites to everyone. They were designed to be user-friendly, allowing anyone interested in the topics of Diversity and Inclusion to know more about it and to have the tools to organise an activity on it. DIVE allowed the partner organisations to be more aware of the issues of inclusion and diversity, and although the process has already started, in the longer-term.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 147279 Eur

Project Coordinator

LES JEUNES EUROPEENS-FRANCE ASSOCIATION & Country: FR

Project Partners

• ASSOCIATION DES ETATS GENERAUX DES ETUDIANTS DE L’EUROPE
• AEGEE EVROPOLIS
• Erasmus Student Network Dubrovnik
• EVROPEISKO MLADEZHKO DVIZHENIE
• Association des États Généraux des Étudiants de l Europe Cagliari
• Erasmus Student Network Sverige
• YES FORUM EWIV – YOUTH AND EUROPEAN SOCIAL WORK FORUM