CEV Activities

Watch the video of the CEV News September 2016 highlights here.

CEV Policy Conference “Promoting Inclusion Preventing Extremism” (PIPE): CEV invites you to register and attend PIPE policy conference that will take place on 13-14 October in Brussels (Belgium). The event is organised in the framework of the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the European Union and with the support of London House and Team London (European Volunteering Capital 2016). The conference and best practice publication will explore the role and impact of volunteers & volunteer-involving projects on promoting inclusion and preventing extremism. The European Volunteering Capital 2018 Candidates Presentations Reception will take place on the 13 October 2016 from 18.00 at London House in Brussels. The updated programme and more information about the PIPE conference is available here. Registrations via this form until 30 September.

PIPE conference will be preceded by an event in collaboration with CEV and sponsored by ALDE in the European Parliament on the evening of 12 October (17:00 - 20.00) exploring volunteering strategies across Europe. Register here by 5 October and find more information about the event here.

CEV Director Gabriella Civico (as steering committee member of CSE for CEV) presented Civil Society Europe during the S&D event “The role of civil society in the European political and legislative process” on 7 September 2016, in the European Parliament. She congratulated  for S&D for leading the way in civil dialogue and advocated strongly for addressing the shrinking civic space in Europe. She stressed that in the EP there is  an increasing negative discourse on the role of civil society, and that S&D must address this. Finally she noted that there were threats to reduce funding to NGOs in a number of programmes in particular the Europe for Citizens programme, and that S&D members should address this in the discussions on the future of EU funding.

On 8 September CEV Director participated in the workshop “Skills development and employability in Europe: The New Skills Agenda” in the European Parliament. The event focused on the revision of European education and training frameworks and on the necessity to update and modernise tools that can help youth to access the labour market. She asked the CEDEFOP representative and the MEP hosts to clarify their view on the importance of recognition and validation of non-formal and informal learning, for example through volunteering given that it had not been included on the agenda alongside consideration of formal education and VET. More information about the Agenda can be found here.

CEV Director Gabriella Civico offered expertise during the IMPULSA project in the form of online and face to face training about youth work, volunteering, and social inclusion through sports. The project is funded by Erasmus+ and aims to increase participants' competences to promote social inclusion through sports, at the local level. London Sport is the UK partner. London is the #EVCapital 2016 and the outcomes of IMPULSA will be presented in London City Hall on December 2nd with the support of Team London.

CEV Director Gabriella Civico highlights the need for balance when talking about “Recognition and Validation of Non-Formal and Informal learning achieved through volunteering” in her article shared via the BBE-Europe News: “CEV considers it crucial to recognise volunteering as a source of non-formal and informal learning but also believes however that a balance must be kept in order not to move the focus of volunteering from the benefit to others to the benefit of the individual in the form of qualifications or recognition of skills.” Read the full article here.

Video: Watch here a few impressions from the participants in the CEV Study Visits 2016.

The campaign VisDinFrivillighed (Show us your volunteer-work) celebrating the work of volunteers in Aarhus- #EVCapital 2018 Candidate is now up and running. Follow updates here and read the articles about the two candidates from the national media in Denmark here.

EVEN member Moody’s Foundation published their online Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report available here.

CEV Members

Association “Mi”, Split,  CVCN member, initiated the project “Optimizing Volunteer Services in Times of Refugee Crisis” with support from the programme “Europe for Citizens” and in partnership with Croatian Volunteers Centre Network (Croatia), Novi Sad Humanitarian Centre (Serbia), Legis Skopje (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Voluntary Action Sheffield (United Kingdom), Önkéntes Központ Alapítvány (Hungary) and CEV. The project focuses on “volunteering in the refugee crisis” and aims to collect ideas and impressions from  volunteers & volunteer managers who participated in the recent, and still ongoing refugee crisis in order  to contribute to a better response to refugees’ needs and better standards in volunteer work. An online webinar will take place on the 27 September 2016 and interested participants are invited to register via this form before 20 September 2016.

The video showcasing the conference organised by Pro Vobis (Romania) and the project partners, in collaboration with CEV, and supported by the European Commission through the Erasmus+ program is available here. The capacity building event “The Volunteer Manager: Key to Excellency in Volunteer Management" that took place on 7-8 April 2016, in Bucharest Romania was also the occasion to share the tools developed during the project “Wake-Up Call: Volunteer Manager Role” that can be downloaded here.

EVEN Workbook works in Poland! How to encourage business to the cooperation with NGOs? How to design the employee volunteering program in a way that will bring employees a lot of satisfaction and will be effective at the same time? To give answers to these questions Marzena Kacprowicz from the Good Network Foundation conducted a workshop in Cracow, Poland and she introduced the topic of employee volunteering using the EVEN Workbook. The representatives of Polish NGOs and companies who participated in the workshop had a chance to test the cycle of establishing an employee volunteering program by taking part in specially designed exercises and simulations. All the participants found the EVEN Workbook very interesting and useful. They declared that they will use it in their everyday work. If it works in Poland, it can work in your country as well, so we highly recommend you taking advantage of the EVEN Workbook!

Hazloposible have published their annual report 2015 "Canalizando el talento hacia causas sociales con impacto"  a year with great achievements, with over 7 million connections between individuals & NGOs and over 500,000 citizens participate in our projects. The report is available in Spanish here.

Perm Volunteerism Centre: The Conference “Volunteerism–Avenue for Social Transformation” took place on June 28-29, 2016 at the United Nations Office at Geneva, Switzerland. João Teixeira (CPV – Portugal), CEV Vice-President, addressed the participants of the conference, presented CEV’s work and moderated the plenary session on “Rethinking the core of voluntary service according to present cultural and social changes”.

EU News

#EUAidVolunteers vacancies were published and interested individuals can apply to volunteer full-time in a humanitarian aid project around the world for between one and 18 months. Online volunteering opportunities are also available. Read more...

The European Commission has launched a consultation about the mobility of young volunteers in the EU as part of the “Evaluation of Youth Policy Cooperation in the EU” seeking to collect views on how EU countries work together on policy for young people on the EU Council Recommendation on the mobility of young volunteers in the EU and on the EU Youth Strategy (2010-2018) generally. Deadline for contributions: 16 October 2016.

First results of the Fund for European aid to the most deprived - providing food aid and social integration, often through funding volunteer-involving organisations were published. Read more…

The first orientation debate on the mid-term review of the EU budget took place on 27 July 2016. The EU budget will continue to focus on jobs, growth and investment, and aims to make rules simpler so that EU funds are easier to access and administer. Read more…

Four reports on ‪#‎validation‬ have just been published by Cedefop. They focus on funding, the care and youth sectors, use of validation of non-formal and informal learning, and validation and open educational resources. Read more...  The  registration is open for the Cedefop conference "How to make learning visible? Strategies for implementing validation of non-formal and informal learning" Thessaloniki, 28-29 November 2016. Read more...

EPALE (the European Platform for Adult Learning in Europe) hosted the Informal and Non-Formal Learning Week on 15-20 August 2016. A range of features including news, blogs, events and resources around the informal and non-formal education were collected and published. A blogpost on the validation of competences in the field of volunteering based on the European Qualification Framework is included in the list and made available in several languages and can be found here.

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Other News

On 19 July 2016, ESOMAR, together with 8 associations representing civil society and research, has sent an open letter calling the EU institutions to redouble efforts towards more citizen-centric and evidence based policy-making. Read the open letter here...

The United Nations Volunteers programme and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), both members of the "Forum for Volunteering in Development" (Forum), will jointly host the 2016 annual International Volunteering Cooperation Organizations (IVCO) conference in Bonn. Read more...

The Lifelong Learning Platform will be holding its 6th Lifelong Learning Week from 10 - 13 October 2016 inside and outside of the European Parliament in Brussels. Read more...

ALDA the European Association for Local Democracy, calls for proposals of initiatives in the field of active European citizenship taking place from 1 September to 31 December 2016. Read more...

Common statement by 177 European and national Civil Society Organisations and Trade Unions calls for  “A new Europe for people, planet and prosperity for all”. Read more...