XCHANGE 2.0 exchange of youth leaders in International Voluntary Service

Project Partners:

Year of Realisation:

2019

Goal and Project Description:

The project “XCHANGE 2.0 – exchange of international youth leaders in International Voluntary Service” involves 14 partners from 8 countries and one European network where all are members – Alliance of European Voluntary Service Organisations. The coordinating organisation is Young Researchers of Serbia. Workcamps are their common denominator.

Workcamp movement is almost 100 years old. It has always been avant-garde and innovative, so to exist this long. It used to involve women at the same level as men in times when most European countries didn’t allow women the right to vote. It declined to have any military or religious activities in workcamps, when it used to be the default. It has stood for solidarity in many times of crisis, precisely because of the dynamic nature of international youth volunteerism.

Projects like XCHANGE help explore new innovative ways for the movement to address the needs of young people and youth organisations. XCHANGE is about the exchange of youth leaders, as a response to a common challenge of decrease in number of youth leaders in the movement.

In the period between 15/12/2018 and 14/06/2020 the consortium provided a theoretical (training) and hands on experience (practice phase) to 15 youth leaders from Serbia and 20 from partners’ countries. The leaders coordinated 26 local community projects (workcamps) involving 350+ young volunteers from all over the world.

OBJ 1: raise the level of key competences and skills of youth leaders for the task of coordinating international volunteer projects (workcamps) abroad

OBJ 2:  Foster an international/intercultural supportive environment and mentorship system for practicing youth leadership abroad, deeply linked to local communities’ realities in countries other than one’s own

OBJ 3:  raise awareness of the the practice and benefits of international mobility of youth workers for better social cohesion, intercultural understanding and more inclusive practices on local level

OBJ 4: support and facilitate strong and clear partnership and agreements among 14 organisations involved

Activities:

• Kick-off meeting, Jan 2019, online
• Promotion campaign, recruitment of leaders, Jan-Apr 2019
• Two international trainings of youth leaders in IVS, April-May 2019, Serbia
• Practice phase: youth work abroad, 35 youth leaders exchanged between Serbia and other partners during summer 2019
• Support system for youth leaders by HOs during their practice phase, in all countries
• Promotional campaign -dissemination of results from the practice phase: upgrade of the web documentary www.youthleaders.online with a blog, translation, new stories from leaders, along the project, online among partners
• Evaluation with leaders and SOs and certification Sept-Dec 2019, nationally
• Evaluation meeting, Nov 2019, online

Project Results:

• 35 trained youth leaders, 15 from Serbia and 20 from the partner countries
• 26 international voluntary workcamps included in the project with 350+ international volunteers and 26 local communities in partner countries
• upgraded content of the web documentary  www.youthleaders.online with new testimonials from camp leaders and translated/subtitled into Italian, Serbian, Spanish, French, German, Slovak, Czech, Turkish
• practice of international exchange of camp leaders taken roots among the members of the Alliance of European Voluntary Service Organisations and promoted as a promising practice for the future of IVS movement

Target Group:

Young activists from partner organisations, leaders of international voluntary workcamps

Project Spacial Area:

Serbia, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkey, Spain, France

Funding Sources:

Erasmus+ Program of European Commission (82.599,71 euros)

Additional Information: