YESVolunteer

Youth volunteering is spread across Europe and recognized by the EU as a tool for developing more inclusive, tolerant, socially engaged, and democratic societies (“Action for high quality and inclusive youth volunteering”, EU Commission, 2022). Through civic engagement, in their country of residence or in another European country, young people aged 18-30 develop soft and hard skills useful to their personal and professional growth (according to the United Health Group, 49% of volunteers acknowledged the positive impact on their career), while giving back to the society through solidarity missions that answer the need for a more sustainable world.

When it comes to providing a European framework for youth civic engagement, there are multiple options and programmes focusing on different insights of volunteering (linguistic skills, inclusion of disadvantaged youth, professional insertion, sustainability training etc). Among our partnership, we have diverse expertise, be it a specific understanding of the financial instruments, needs and impact analysis, accompaniment towards professional insertion, the inclusion of youth with fewer opportunities, legal and technical aspects of European and national volunteering for young people etc.

Systematized, directly supported, and then more inclusive programs remains however scarce at nationl and local level, and there is a lack of transfer of good practices, capacity building and dissemination we want to tackle with this project. It limits indeed the efficiency of the instruments, and the potential wider impact volunteering could have on the personal and professional growth of young people.

Therefore, the objective of the project is to stimulate professional growth and create employment opportunities through youth volunteering and civic engagement programmes for the personal and professional growth of young people in a more social Europe,with a special focus on youth with fewer opportunities and from remote areas.