No ESCape from Reflection: Professional development activity for organizations involved in ESC in the Western Balkans

Training Course / 9-15 January 2022 | Kuterevo, Croatia

The project No ESCape from reflection (Erasmus + KA1) deals with improving the quality of support for international volunteers and mentors in the frame of the European Solidarity Corps program, especially when it comes to learning and reflection.

Partners are: VUK (Velebitska Udruga Kuterevo, Croatia), GAIA Kosovo, Volunteers’ Centre of Vojvodina (Serbia), PVN (Albania), Center for Intercultural Dialogue (Northern Macedonia), Nešto Više (Bosnia and Herzegovina).

The general objective of this project is the improvement of the support mechanisms, and thus of the quality, of Volunteering projects in frame of the European Solidarity Corps programme in the Western Balkans, while the specific are:

1) Equipping hosting organizations active in ESC Volunteering projects with competencies and tools to ensure a deeper, comprehensive and empowering reflection based on critical thinking for ESC volunteers and their mentors;

2)Exploring the potential of learning and reflection in ESC Volunteering projects in the field of environmental education and protection;

3)Developing innovative, handy and youth-friendly tools for ESC volunteers and their mentors in order to support and record their learning process (with a focus on environmental ESC projects);

4)Increase the awareness of ESC volunteers, mentors and coordinators about the environmental and social impact of their projects at the personal, organizations,community, regional and European levels.

In the project, we have one training for members of organizations working with ESC in Kuterevo in January 2022 and one training for mentors of ESC (and other long-term international) volunteers in Boževce in May/June 2022.

The 1st training course (January 9th-15th, Kuterevo, Croatia) aims at improving the quality of Volunteering ESC projects in the partner organizations, with a focus on the elements of learning, support to learning and solidarity. Participants are 12 ESC coordinators, volunteers’ coordinators and programme coordinators from the 6 partner orgs.

What to expect from it?

-To enhance overall knowledge and understanding of international Long Term Volunteering and especially the European Solidarity Corps programme, with a focus on Volunteering projects;

• increase competencies in writing and managing ESC projects that suits the needs of organizations, volunteers, local communities,
• improve their capacity for regional and European cooperation in the frame of volunteering projects,
  -reflect and share experience on the learning opportunities that their current and planned project present to volunteers (and have the chance to improve those),
  -reflect and discuss the ways in which their organizations understand and practice solidarity (within and beside ESC projects) at the inner, local, regional, European levels.

More information at: SALTO