Digital technologies for validating young volunteers competences Erasmus Project

Project Title

Digital technologies for validating young volunteers competences

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Recognition, transparency, certification; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

DYVO project will contribute to facilitate and innovate recognition and validation of competences acquired through non-formal and informal learning in the field of youth volunteering, with the aim of enhancing young people’s employability and social participation and youth/voluntary organizations’ quality of work. The project will contribute to overcome some of the obstacles that still hinder the diffusion of validation practices in the voluntary sector: the lack of flexible, easy-to-use instruments; the lack of awareness on the relevance of transversal skills, and on volunteering as an experience of development of those skills; the lack of specific skills in youth workers for guiding validation processes of young volunteers; the lack of a clear framework of learning outcomes of informal learning through volunteering and of the related competences that can be acquired. Coherently, the objectives of the strategic partnership are: 1) to develop a new digital, easy-to-use and innovative tool to support the recognition and validation of competences in youth volunteering; 2) to empower young volunteers, youth workers and organizations in the development and exploitation of methods, tools and procedures for validating competences, included the new Europass framework; 3) to elaborate a clear framework of learning outcomes, and related competences, of informal learning through youth volunteering, and a clear methodology of validation; 4) to promote recognition and validation of competences of young volunteers with fewer opportunities.
In order to achieve these objectives the project develops, tests and disseminates an innovative model for validating young volunteers’ competences called DYVO Model, composed of 3 Intellectual Outputs. DYVO App is IO1 and is the core innovative output of the project; it is a blockchain-based certificate platform (Desktop and Mobile app) for the management of the validation process, whose final version will be fully accessible in five languages: English, French, Italian, German and Lithuanian. The App will be developed and tested with a transnational group of 40 young volunteers (included a subgroup of young people with fewer opportunities) tutors and assessors. Within this digital environment all the steps of validation can be easily performed: identify and document acquired competences producing a portfolio, assess and certify them through blockchain technology.
E-book on the DYVO Model is IO2 and will contain: a competence framework, that is a set of competences commonly acquired through volunteering experiences, with a link to the labour market perspective, in order to highlight ways of capitalizing learning outcomes into a job context; a methodology of validation, that is the definition of methods for identification, documentation, assessment and certification of competences under DYVO Model; a collection of case histories of young volunteers and voluntary organizations to work as role models.
DYVO Training Package is IO3, that is a set of innovative training programs for young volunteers, tutors and assessors aimed at empowering them in recognition and validation of transversal skills. The training package will be designed and piloted and then released as OER.
IOs will be disseminated according to a sound dissemination strategy aimed at creating the conditions for further exploitation of IOs at regional, national and European level.
The main results of the project are: a simplification of the process of validation; an increased awareness on the importance of validation and transversal skills among relevant stakeholders; a qualitative and quantitative increase in young volunteers’ participation in transnational activities, also among young people with fewer opportunities. On a longer term, the expected impact is that the project contributes to increase the share of young volunteers who receive formal recognition and who use Europass; that the DYVO Model can become a standard at least in the regions where it is tested, but also be transferred in other regions and countries, so that an increasing number of youth/voluntary organizations may implement it and an increasing number of young volunteers may validate their competences; that DYVO project can contribute to national and European debate on validation, especially as regards the use of ICT-based tools.
The project’s desired impact on young volunteers is that they are facilitated in accessing the labour market; they continue validating competence and updating Europass; they increase the quality of their volunteering and social participation. As for youth workers, the expected impact is that they are trained to serve as tutors for guiding validation processes; increase the quality of their youth work; make a more strategic and effective use of digital technologies; benefit from more motivated and qualified volunteers.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 195204 Eur

Project Coordinator

CSV MARCHE CENTRO SERVIZI PER IL VOLONTARIATO DELLE MARCHE & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Pundi X 365 LIMITED
• E.N.T.E.R. GMBH
• WAREHOUSE HUB SRL
• CENTRE EUROPEEN DU VOLONTARIAT
• JAUNUOLIU DIENOS CENTRAS