Young Volunteers in the Cultural Events – Lessons Learned from COVID-19 Crisis Erasmus Project

Project Title

Young Volunteers in the Cultural Events – Lessons Learned from COVID-19 Crisis

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 : Partnerships for Creativity

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

The core aim of YOUNGETEERS is to empower organisations working with volunteers on some of the greatest cultural programmes in Europe. YOUNGETEERS will create vibrant, innovative and long-term cooperation among young people and cultural workers, raise the quality of local youth work and promote the importance of volunteering in culture. The project will build foundations for the recognition of knowledge, skills and competences young people gain through volunteering in culture and informal and non-formal learning processes related to it and advocate for more structural support in order to build quality volunteer programmes and ensure their sustainability in a local, national, and European level.

COVID-19 crisis paralysed cultural and creative sectors and created an even greater disparity between cultural events and those who benefit from them. In addition, many of the existing volunteer programmes in culture were not able to maintain their regular activities, which meant that in situations where volunteers could have been of great help for the whole community, their hands were tied since the resources were limited or physical involvement restricted by governments’ strict regulations.

YOUNGETEERS results from these global challenges and builds its foundations on current young people’s needs, as the newest studies report that their mental health deteriorated the most during the pandemic. This partnership emerged from the informal ECoC volunteer coordinators network, reinforced by 3 additional partners whose skills in crisis management, mental health and personal development were the missing links ECoC volunteer coordinators needed for finding ways of successfully managing volunteers during the crisis. The project is in line with the priorities reflected in the EU Youth Strategy regarding voluntary activities and is built upon European Youth Goals.

With a focus on cross-sectoral cooperation in the field of youth and emphasis on the pandemic context and its effects on cultural and creative sectors, the partners from 7 countries have joined their expertise in order to find innovative solutions that could help build the resilience of volunteer programmes in culture and use volunteering in culture as a means of empowering young people to become creators of cultural activities and successful innovators in their local environment.

During 24 months, the partners will design and test innovative educational tools and methods based on the needs of young volunteers and youth workers, which will strengthen participating organizations and improve their capacity for working with the volunteers and training other youth workers for developing high-quality sustainable volunteer programmes resilient to crises. A manual with a detailed description of the methodology used in this project will be published, together with examples of good practices and the lessons learned from COVID-19 crisis. The aim of the manual is to provide assistance to all organisations, institutions and non-formal groups that work with the volunteers in culture and to guide them in creating volunteer programmes resilient to crisis.

The main target groups are young people aged 17 to 27, volunteers, youth workers, volunteer staff and staff from cultural and creative sectors.
The main results of the project are to create:
– the new methodology for training youth workers to manage volunteers in culture in times of crisis
– the new methodology for training young people to volunteer in culture in times of crisis
– the manual for volunteer management in culture in times of crisis

The expected impact is to strengthen volunteer programmes in culture and prepare volunteer staff and volunteers to better respond to current and future pandemical and post-pandemical circumstances while using the lessons learnt from COVID-19 crisis. YOUNGETEERS intends to have a multiplying effect by connecting to different activities of the participating organizations and spreading project results to a wide range of stakeholders.

Sustainability of YOUNGETEERS is ensured by engaging the local community in the activities, as well as through dissemination strategies, that would put a large focus on volunteer coordinators of former, current and future European Capitals of Culture, who manage some of the biggest volunteer programmes in Europe, with thousands of volunteers assisting in the cultural events.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 126896 Eur

Project Coordinator

Subjekt d.o.o. & Country: HR

Project Partners

• ASOCIATIA TIMISOARA 2021 – CAPITALA EUROPEANA A CULTURII
• OBSTINSKA FONDATSIA PLOVDIV 2019
• Network europeo per la psichiatria psicodinamica
• Larpifiers AMKE
• FUNDACJA EDUKACYJNA NAUSIKA
• FONDACIJA NOVI SAD 2021 – EVROPSKAPRESTONICA KULTURE