Watch the video of the CEV News December 2017 highlights here.
CEV Activities:
CEV has adopted a change in Statutes to facilitate membership for European Networks allowing even more organisations to work together to promote, support and develop volunteering & solidarity across Europe, through advocacy, knowledge sharing and capacity building and training. To see the conditions and join click here.
CEV would like to introduce you to its new mobile-friendly website: www.europeanvolunteercentre.org, in a year where CEV celebrates its 25th anniversary. Here you will be able to read about the work that is being developed, publications, initiatives and projects, as well as general information on the topic of Volunteering in Europe. To check it out click here.
On the 15 November CEV Director Gabriella Civico attended the event “Building Counter-Narratives to Violent Extremism”, organised by Club de Madrid and Breakthrough Media, with the support of the European Union. This event highlighted the role of volunteers in preventing violent radicalisation, a follow up to the Promoting Inclusion Preventing Extremism (PIPE) conference and publication that took place in October 2016. To know more about the event click here. To read the PIPE publication click here.
On November 27th, CEV’s EU Solidarity Corps trainee Giulia Bordin took part in the “Workshop to envisage the future of government 2030+ together with international civil society organisations and think tanks”, organised by the European Commission. The goal of this workshop was to establish a EU policy laboratory with a multidisciplinary approach in order to plan together the Future 2030+.
CEV was present in several events that took place in Brussels from the 20-24 November as part of the Life-Long-Learning Week, organised by the LLLPlatform, the European Youth Forum and Solidar. Several aspects discussed during this week, such as the opportunities for synergies between different stakeholders, formal and non-formal education providers, business and NGOs; the need to set up an infrastructure where content can be accessed easily for training and validation services; the funding opportunities to modernize education and training and the need to develop a common framework for non-formal learning at local and European level shared with diverse partnerships and stakeholders, very much focus on the same objectives for the NFIL Validation system intended to be developed by the Erasmus + project in which CEV is a partner, LEVER UP. To know more about LEVER UP click here.
On 27 October, CEV Project Officer Sara Fasoli met with Project Manager Zrinka Čornij to hear about the VolON project. You can find more information here. The project is implemented by the association SKAC Palma from Zagreb in partnership with SKAC Split and World Federation of Youth Croatia and educational institutions: Secondary School Dugo Selo, Natural Science and Technology School, School of Design, Graphic and Sustainable Building, and Graditeljsko-Geodetsko Tehničko školstvo iz Splita, the Vukovar High School and the Student High School Maksimir for two school years and is financed from the resources of the European Social Fund. To know more about the project click here.
On the 27- 28 November CEV Director Gabriella Civico attended the New perspectives for Social Innovation Forum, that took place in Lisbon. It was co-organised by the European Commission, the Portuguese Government and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The main objective of this conference was to analyse the diversity of approaches in terms of social innovation in the different sectors and attempt to find an integrated perspective to it. To know more click here. This was also explored in a research paper done by Maria Ramos from Porto’s university “Solidarity economy is seen as a social space and participatory development, not only because it promotes a variety of activities and services that are useful to the community, including proximity, but also because it encompasses population with greater difficulty of insertion and, at the same time, the volunteers, who seek an occupation for their free time, according to their abilities and skills, can combine utility and solidarity.” To read the research paper click here.
On the 29 November the event on "Volunteering and Inclusion of Refugees" organised by CEV, the World Organization of the Scout Movement, World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, the European Youth Forum and Volonteurope took place to showcase examples of best practices on the role of volunteering towards the inclusion of refugees.To read more click here.
CEV EU Solidarity Corps Trainee Giulia Bordin attended the Conference on Corporate Volunteering organised by the Volunteer Centre of Verona, Centro di Servizio per il Volontariato di Verona, in Italy on 1 December. The main objective of the conference was to showcase good corporate volunteering practices and to share recent research done on the topic. To know more about the conference click here.
For the occasion of the 11th Slovenian Volunteering Congress that took place on the 5 December in Ljubljana, CEV Director Gabriella Civico prepared a video presentation, talking about the concept of Volunteer Management and the importance of not only ‘rostering’ but also coaching and mentoring volunteers as part of the process.. She explained that volunteering actively prevents hate speech, promotes inclusion and tolerance and enables the citizens to be directly active in developing the Europe they strive for. To know more and watch the video click here. Further information will be published soon here.
EV Capital Special Edition
On the 1 December the Closing ceremony of the European Volunteering Capital 2017 Sligo took place in Ireland. The event highlighted the special ways in which volunteers had been recognised and celebrated during 2017 and emphasized the importance of cross-sector collaboration for the success of the year and the lasting legacy that could already be observed in stronger volunteering policies and higher engagement rates from citizens as volunteers. You can read more about it here. During the ceremony the title was formally handed over to Aarhus, Denmark European Volunteering Capital 2018. See the photos here. And the national news report here.
The European Volunteering Capital 2019 was announced at the EV Capital 2017 Closing Ceremony in Sligo. Congratulating all the candidates for their immense commitment to volunteers and their organisations CEV Director Gabriella Civico announced that jury had concluded that KOSICE (Slovakia) was the deserving winner. In choosing Košice as the European Volunteering Capital 2019 the jury identified a genuine interest in ensuring quality volunteering and a deep understanding of the need to focus on quality not only with regard to the activities themselves, but also in providing sufficient funding for this to be ensured. You can read the full press release here. And photos here.
EV Capital 2018 Aarhus: The municipality of Aarhus, Denmark invites you to explore and celebrate volunteering on January 21st and 22nd 2018. January 21st will see the European Volunteering Capital 2018 Opening Celebrations and January 22nd a conference in the framework of the European Capital of Culture 2017 to consider volunteer IMPACT. You can register for the IMPACT conference here and find full details about this two-day volunteer celebrations here.
Members News
In October 2017 the Tartu Marathon took place in Estonia. People from all over Estonia volunteered in order to support the functioning of the sport event. Volunteers helped Mari-Liis who is blind fulfill her dream to participate in the 10K race. To see the video about her story and the volunteers who helped her click here. Volunteers contribute immensely to the functioning of these type of events, and this is the reason why, Project Erasmus+ InSCULT, in which CEV is a partner, is very relevant. As it intends to connect sports and volunteering and celebrate and recognise sport volunteers for their efforts. To know more about the Project click here.
CEV European Solidarity Corps Member Giulia Bordin represented the CEV in the International Volunteering Forum 2017, in Perm. She presented the topic of "Connecting and Empowering Volunteer Organisations across Europe" and talked about the newly updated Chapter 30: Volunteering in Russia of CEV's “Volunteering Infrastructure in Europe” Publication. To read chapter 30 click here. She was also present in the LAMPA festival, an event that showed diverse movies dealing with social topics, such as “Wire” by Berkay Hasbay, dealing with the subject of refugees.
The Volunteer Ireland National Volunteer Awards were presented on 1st December at a ceremony in Sligo, the European Volunteering Capital 2017. CEV Director Gabriella Civico had the honour to present the award in the CATEGORY: CAMPAIGNING & AWARENESS RAISING to Mohammed Rafique, a volunteer from Carlow for the Rohingya Council/CW Integration Forum. The Volunteer Ireland Awards are the national campaign to recognise Ireland’s volunteers supported by the network of Volunteer Centres and Volunteering Information Services. 30 shortlisted nominees and 3 shortlisted groups and their friends and family attended the gala 10 category awardees were announced at the event along with the Volunteer Manager of the Year.
At the 19th Spanish National Congress of Volunteering that took place on the 22-23 November in Andalusia, Spain, co-organised by CEV members PVE, PAV & the Andalucian Government, in collaboration with the Spanish Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality, CEV Director Gabriella Civico spoke about the value of volunteering for the construction of a social Europe and also about the challenges and opportunities in the future implementation of the proposed European Solidarity Corps. In a short interview she highlighted that the most relevant aspect of volunteering is that volunteering cannot be limited to an objective in itself, but rather it must contain a social and solidarity impact. You can watch the video here and check the photos here.
EU News:
On 20 November the Council agreed its position on the Commission proposal for the European Solidarity Corps. The aim of the proposal is to strengthen cohesion, solidarity and democracy in Europe by offering young people the possibility to volunteer, train or work in beneficial projects across Europe.The Council has responded swiftly and positively to the idea of the European Solidarity Corps. Negotiations with the European Parliament are expected to start in early 2018. To read the full press release click here. To read the Proposal for a regulation click here.
The latest Eurostat report “Sustainable Development in the European Union” states that since 2008, the number of first-time asylum applications has increased dramatically, particularly due to the Syrian conflict. It also suggests that the European Solidarity Corps volunteering strand can be one of the possible contributions to help “for the reception and integration of refugees” in Europe. To read the full publication click here.
Other news:
The report for the 7th IAVE Latin America Regional Volunteer Conference has been recently published. Hosted by Centro de Voluntariado Guatemalteco (CVG) from October 18-20 in Antigua Guatemala, the conference assembled over 230 participants from 25 countries around the world. With the hard work and dedication of staff members and over 50 volunteers, the conference turned out to be a tremendous success, renewing participants’ drive to foster volunteering as a pathway to development. To read the full conference report click here.
The Vienna University , partner of the eu3leader project presented for the first time a compiled overview of the challenges and opportunities of the Third Sector in Europe through the GoToWebinar programme. In this webinar questions were raised as well as an overview of diverse testimonies of leaders from different countries on how they embrace challenges and opportunities in their everyday work. To know more click here.
This year, the UNSSC and simpleshow foundation launched a Volunteer Initiative which allows anyone around the world to volunteer and create their own explainer videos about the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Anyone who joins the Initiative can craft their own message to explain a sustainable development topic of their choice. No prior experience in video creation is required, so this is an opportunity for individuals or organisations who would like to share their sustainable development message in an engaging video format. To find more information and sign up click here.
A new research project has been developed on the value that corporate volunteering raises for the company, volunteers, social institutions and society in general. A new model was developed based on the analysis of EDP’s (Energies of Portugal) corporate volunteering programme. It was found that on average volunteering generates €3.55 for each €1 invested and that the potential return on a volunteer hour granted by EDP is 5.75 x higher than the costs. It was therefore found that in 2015, the total investment was €794,000 and the total amount raised €2.8 million. To read the full research project click here.
The SALTO YOUTH South East Europe Resource Centre organised the conference “Raise your voice for tomorrow’s Europe. Forum on Democratic citizenship with a European Dimension” that took place from the 13-16 November in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The conference explored the importance of recognising the role of non-formal education practices, particularly in the context of volunteering, through the promotion of active citizenship and human rights. To know more click here.
Collaborate is the new app developed by Springload, New Zealand where volunteers and organisations have the opportunity to express an interest, match skills with volunteering opportunities and for organisations to get in touch directly with volunteers. Collaborate found that 90 percent of volunteers surveyed find it hard to find “volunteer opportunities, especially ones that matched their skills, interests and time they have available" and this is why the app was developed, in order to facilitate the matchmaking process. To know more click here.
A report from the UK on “the Economic Value of Full-time Volunteering” has found that the legal status for full-time volunteering has been estimated at anywhere between £28m and £119m. The report says that the economic case for full-time volunteering is based on a range of benefits “including the value of the services delivered by the volunteer, the benefits to the volunteer and wider societal benefits”. To read more click here.
In a new study, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found evidence that elderly people in the U.S. who have an active social life may have a slower rate of memory decline. Social integration was assessed by marital status, volunteer activities, and contact with parents, children and neighbors.The results showed that individuals with the highest social integration had the slowest rate of memory decline from 1998 to 2004. In fact, memory decline among the most integrated was less than half the rate among the least integrated. These findings were independent of sociodemographic factors (such as age, gender, and race) and health status in 1998. To read the article click here.
UAE schools adopt social engagement as an academic requirement. The President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan declared 2017 as the 'Year of Giving' where acts of kindness, giving and volunteering should be the main focus for the residents and citizens. In this context schools have adopted service learning explaining that they “believe in a holistic learning experience” and this is an opportunity for students “to apply theoretical material studied in the classroom in a real-world context”. To read more click here.