Volunteering for the Future: a strategic partnership for innovative learning of European volunteers Erasmus Project

Project Title

Volunteering for the Future: a strategic partnership for innovative learning of European volunteers

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

Over the course of 32 months, the project developed high quality learning opportunities for volunteers returning from placements in the Global South, to upskill them as active citizens on international development issues. Each partner – in Czech Republic (Inex), Germany (finep), Ireland (Comhlámh) and the UK (Volunteering Matters) – has extensive experience of working with international volunteers, and the project helped to deepen our competencies to translate volunteers’ skills and experiences gained while overseas into lifelong learning and active citizenship. We achieved this through the production of intellectual outputs (research, training resources, and an online course), training for returned volunteers and for volunteer sending agencies, and a series of multiplier events that raised awareness of the project.

In addition to building partners’ capacity to support continuous engagement, the project specifically targeted individual volunteers and volunteer sending agencies. All of the resources and materials developed focused on recognising and deepening volunteers’ skills that were stimulated while overseas (e.g. critical thinking, multiple perspectives, community participation, etc.). The project commenced with research into enabling conditions that support volunteers to remain involved in international development following a placement: the findings were used to identify guidelines on fostering and promoting active citizenship, which provided the foundation for the subsequent intellectual outputs and training courses. We then developed a pan-EU training course for returned international volunteers. Our first training event provided an opportunity to pilot this course with 35 volunteers from the 4 partner countries, who were subsequently supported to develop an individual or group global justice action project,

Each partner then worked to localise the training to their national contexts, which resulted in the production of four training manuals specifically tailored for working with returning volunteers in Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland and the UK. We each ran a multiplier event, which provided an opportunity to pilot the courses with 79 volunteers. Participants from these multiplier events were also supported and mentored to undertake action projects on global justice issues. The next stage involved the development of a training companion, which accompanies facilitators working with returned volunteers, to deepen their reflexive practice and encourage/support them to review and strengthen their work on active citizenship. This drew on the knowledge gained during the production of the research and training manuals and on partners’ collective expertise, and was underpinned throughout by development education methodologies.

In the project’s final year, we held a training of trainers’ course for staff involved in international volunteer placement programmes, which provided an opportunity for the learning from the training manuals, the research and the training companion to be presented to 26 participants, whose organisations arrange approx. 3,684 volunteer placements annually. We additionally worked to adapt the course materials into an online format, which was piloted through facilitated webinars with 36 returned volunteers. The course was then launched as a stand-alone, self-guided resource, helping to ensure that learning opportunities are brought to as wide a group as possible, including those living in geographically marginalised areas; it has since been used by over a hundred learners. In the project’s penultimate month, each partner ran a multiplier event in their respective countries, which raised awareness of the materials with a wide group of stakeholders (99 participants in total), including individual volunteers, volunteer sending organisations, relevant state authorities, and other international networks.

Throughout the project, we disseminated the outputs/key achievements to 809 volunteer sending organisations, third level institutions, national and international networks, returnee networks, and education platforms. The resources and approaches have since been adopted into the practice of volunteer sending agencies in each partner country, as well as referenced by international networks and initiatives. The action projects developed by course participants have directly reached an estimated 3,185 members of the public, indirectly engaging a further 10,400, on international development topics that range from migration to climate change to the SDGs. Each partner has incorporated the learning into their pedagogical frameworks, and continues to work on supporting active citizenship through online and offline courses for returned volunteers. Finally, the project’s training manuals will be adapted for a new E+ project (2019-2021) that will link returned volunteers and newly arrived migrants to work together on global justice action projects.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 311489 Eur

Project Coordinator

COMHLAMH – DEVELOPMENT WORKERS IN GLOBAL SOLIDARITY : IRELAND & Country: IE

Project Partners

• INEX – SDRUZENI DOBROVOLNYCH AKTIVIT Z S
• forum für internationale entwicklung + planung – finep
• VOLUNTEERING MATTERS