Volunteering – Solidarity – Sustainability Erasmus Project

Project Title

Volunteering – Solidarity – Sustainability

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

This strategic partnership with the four project partners Freundeskreis Ökodorf (Germany), Ängsbacka (Sweden), Cloughjordan Community Farm (Ireland) and Ananda Marga Danmark (Denmark) focuses on volunteering, solidarity and sustainability.
Our organisations all work with young volunteers, between 8 and 35 individuals per organisation at any given time engaged in long-term volunteering, through the EVS (now ESC) as well as different volunteering schemes. Between all four partners, we have around 80 long-term volunteers every year.
All are situated in intentional communities/ecovillages working in the field of education for sustainable development and involved in solidarity actions.

An ecovillage is an intentional or traditional community that is consciously designed through locally owned, participatory processes to regenerate social and natural environments. The four dimensions of sustainability (ecology, economy, the social and the cultural) are all integrated into a holistic approach.

Despite the similarities, the four partners deal with volunteering quite differently. We would like to learn from each other through good practice exchange and peer learning, through getting a first-hand impression during our visits, and through discussion among colleagues doing similar work in a different context, on a European level.

What are the practices and prerequisites that make a volunteering project successful?

We want to distill from our experience the factors and good practices that promote success and share them with other organisations.

The two main objectives of the project are to
– increase the quality of volunteering activities
– promote values based on solidarity and sustainability

The partnership will analyze the factors that make volunteering projects a success for both the volunteers and the organisations involved.

At the heart of the project is a peer learning process that takes place mostly during two peer-to-peer trainings.

The project produces two main outputs:
– a document that collects the success factors identified, in the form of a brochure or code of practice document
– a collection of good practice examples from our work, in the form of short videos, interviews and/or texts.

These are made freely available online for all interested parties to use.

As part of the project, each partner organisation will go through an organisational development process related to their volunteering practices, upgrading to the next level with inspiration from the peer learning process and an internal reflection and evaluation process.

Besides improvements for ourselves, we also want to support other organisations in developing quality volunteering projects through sharing good practices we have developed through years of experience.

Through a comprehensive dissemination plan we disseminate the project results and outputs widely to our two target groups
– sustainability projects as (potential) hosts
– young people as potential future volunteers

With the help of Europe-wide networks and umbrella organisations we disseminate to sustainability in over 30 European countries through articles, social media, our project website, presentations and workshops.
Locally, the partners Freundeskreis Ökodorf, Ängsbacka and Ananda Marga Danmark collaborate with a total of 4 other host organisations, who are associated partners in this project and partly involved in the project activities.

The project strengthens the European dimension in our own organisations through active networking and increased awareness of staff brought about by visits to and from partner organisations and the international exchange with colleagues.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 50882 Eur

Project Coordinator

Freundeskreis Ökodorf eV & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Ananda Marga Danmark
• Ängsbacka Kursgård Ekonomisk Förening
• Cloughjordan Community Farm