The common denominator to project partners is International Voluntary Service (IVS), particularly workcamps as tools for youth active participation and local sustainable development. The consortium organises more than 200 international short-term voluntary projects –workcamps, which host 3000+ international volunteers and involve 400+ youth leaders.11 partners are members of Alliance of European Voluntary Service organisations and one (Croma, Italy) brings an added value to the project with its specific profile of members – documentary film makers / youth workers. The involvement of the Alliance as a formal promoter assured wider visibility but also certified trainers in non-formal education with expertise in trainings of youth leaders in IVS projects.This consortium explored a new trend in IVS movement: exchange of youth leaders, as a response to a common challenge of decrease in number of youth leaders in the movement.Target group: Youth leaders of international volunteer groups gathered in workcampsGENERAL AIM: Innovate, support and give recognition to youth leadership in the field of international voluntary service within the network of 13 involved project partners from 9 countries and 100+ local stakeholders from Serbia, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, Estonia, Finland.OBJECTIVE 1: improve the level of key competences and skills of 23 youth leaders (10 from Serbia and 13 from Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, Estonia, Finland)OBJECTIVE 2: Foster an international/intercultural supportive environment and mentorship system for practicing youth leadership in IVS movementOBJECTIVE 3: Raise awareness of the importance of specialised youth workers in the IVS field – workcamp leadersThere are three groups of residential activities:• Act 1: International training of youth leaders (05/2017)• Act 2 - 12: Practice Phase: Exchange of youth leaders in International Voluntary Service projects among the applicant and the partners – coordination of 20 workcamps in Serbia, Spain, Turkey, Finland, France, Estonia, Germany, Czech Republic and Italy (summer 2017)• Act 13: Evaluation meeting (10/2017)The project also includes non-residential activities:• Production and promotion of a web documentary for raising awareness on the International Voluntary Service movement and the impact it has on young people, local and international communities, www.youthleaders.online • Mentoring system of youth leaders during their practice phase• Assessment of gained competencies of youth leadership and formal recognition with YouthPass and I’VE tool

Solidarités Jeunesses would like to propose a project on how voluntary projects impact the perception and representations one's have and thus on stereotypes that arise from it.Volunteering projects offer the opportunity to discover new cultures and habits through local organisations, consequently by living the daily life of the people, participating to a project serving the local communities and meeting different organisations answering local needs (environment, construction, social, etc).At the same time, volunteering offers learning opportunities while contributing to meaningful actions during the protection of cultural diversity and the improvement of living conditions.However to experience those projects led on the field by us, voluntary organisations, in many countries in the world, and to allow a change in the volunteers' perceptions of those countries, there is a need for an upstream work in terms of communication in order to increase the number of volunteers going to participate to voluntary project and consequently, supporting the implementation of projects. A great number of the young people are attracted by IVS and eager to contribute to this kind of actions. Despite this, the IVS movement are recording a dramatic decrease in the number of volunteers exchanged especially towards African countries.→ What are the causes of this phenomenon?→ Does the multiplications of other types of volunteering affect us?The will with this project is to identify key elements of our projects in order to communicate better on them for a higher recognition.For this project, we've decided to focus on the projects implemented by our partner organisations in Africa.Indeed too many times, we've noticed that the first words that come to the mind of people when thinking of Africa are: hunger, wars, poverty and refugees. The volunteers still come up with the idea that Africa needs “help”. Through the use of several methods and tools, this project aims at changing this perception and to support our partner organisations in the implementation of their projects.The objectives of the project is to:-To improve the perception of Africa and to develop a critical thinking dealing with mass media, in order to better communicate on IVS projects-To deconstruct stereotypesThose two objectives will lead us to our main one which is:-To increase the number of volunteers exchanged

This project is developed based on the direction of the White Paper for International Voluntary Service (IVS) 2011-2021 regarding Capacity Building and Impact, and in the decision of the General Assembly 2014 to establish a Monitoring and Empowerment System for the CCIVS. Following the 2017-2018 project STEPS to Change (www.ccivs.org/steps), the present project STEPS to the Future brought Organisational Development (OD) training and impact measurement to 20 organisations in 4 regions, allowing the building of a global and regional diagnosis on the State of the Art of the International Voluntary Service movement. Through STEPS, CCIVS aimed at expanding and consolidating the empowerment process in four regions. With the support of Erasmus+, 22 partners (including 3 international and regional networks Service Civil International, Alliance of European Voluntary Service Organisation and Network for Voluntary Development in Asia) from Asia, Africa, Europe and America came together to cooperate in this project, which not only strengthened their own capacity through a series of offline and online trainings and job-shadowing in peer organisation but also benefited from their experience and contribution to the refinement of tools on Organisational Development for IVS organisations. The main objectives were to:-increase the competencies of youth professionals / youth organisations;-improve the cooperation for strategic objectives among the IVS networks;-generate high-quality tools, methods and mechanisms that support such empowerment and monitoring within the network/movement.In order to reach the objectives, the project incorporated the following four phases:1.Launching the Process:-Steering Team Meeting & Experts Seminar in Estonia hosted by EstYes, January 2019.2.Setting the Capacities:-Training for Trainers on Organisational Development in Italy hosted by YAP Italy, May 2019.3.Implement Global Empowerment-On-Field Training Exchanges & Job-shadowing in Europe, May 2019;-Diagnosis & Training on Organisational Development in Africa hosted by VWAN Nigeria and in Asia hosted by VSA Thailand;-MOOC Production Laboratory in Hungary hosted by Egysek, October 2019;-Online Course on Organisational Development for IVS Organisations (STEPS MOOC) launched, January 2020;-Webinar Series, September – November 2020.4.Consolidate and Scale-Monitoring mechanism;-Support measure on organisational sustainability;-Dissemination and future strategies meetings.The project approach and methodologies are innovative and it was a significant step in terms of the evolution and sustainable development of both CCIVS and the International Voluntary Service movement. It was CCIVS’s first time to organise a Training for Trainers on Organisational Development and develop a MOOC on Organisational Development that could reach a much larger target group. The project also mainstreamed “interculturality” throughout its process and incorporated it in the organisational development and monitoring methodology. It’s important to highlight that the consortium reacted promptly and adequately to the COVID-19 pandemic which imposed travel restriction and lockdown policies and brought a great impact on the management and organisation of youth mobility and capacity building work of many organisations and networks in the International Voluntary Service. CCIVS and its partners have actively engaged themselves to make full use of the project tools and outcomes and look for means to diffuse these products that would be beneficial to more individuals and organisations who want to increase their capacities.The project chronicle magazine gives a more detailed overview and highlights of outcomes, & available on http://bit.ly/STEPS2-chronicle.

STEP to Change is a project which aims at starting an empowerment process for International Voluntary Service (IVS) organisations, bringing competences on organisational management, impact measurement and improvement, and by allowing to make a first global diagnosis of the existing needs and capacities of IVS members and regions worldwide.The proposal follows the mission of the CCIVS which is, among other functions, to empower its members and IVS orgs so that they will have better capacity to reach their goals and achieve their vision as ngo's and as a movement. The General Assembly of the CCIVS 2014 in Korea approved a plan for the CCIVS to implement an Empowerment & Monitoring system which should allow to assess the needs of IVS ngo's, provide them with support, trainings and synergies, which may turn weaknesses into strengths and opportunities.This project aims at being the start for the implementation of such a system within the CCIVS. It will also allow to complete a global Impact research on IVS.The general process, priorities and baselines will be arranged by a Steering Team (ST), which will be formed by representatives of 4 IVS networks and a team of 4 experts, in the seminar Setting the Path (France, March'17). There, experts will finetune and develop the tools, and implement a peer-training, to ensure a highlevel of quality for the next phases.The central events of this project will be the regional STEPs (Strategic Trainings for Empowerment Processes), which will happen one in each region(Africa, America, Asia, Europe), led by the team of experts. Each of these STEPs will consist on a first international training on organisational management and impact measurement, for partners in the region,which will allow also to complete a needs-assessment of the participating ngo's. The training will be followed by a field itinerary, which will lead experts to visit each of the countries of the participating ngo's, to lead training, impact measurement of IVS projects and field visits.Outcomes of the STEPs will be global/regional needs-assessment and impact measurement of ngo's in 20 countries, worldwide, and trained professionals.All these materials will be processed by the team of experts, with the help of the ST, to create a first global diagnosis of needs in the movement, and a global report of the impact of IVS.The final seminar Build the Common Path (Hungary, May'18), will have two main goals: first, to process, discuss and valorise the results of the global research-training; second, to build common strategies to set up the long term Monitoring and Empowerment programme of the CCIVS, including fundraising and sustainability strategies adapted to each region and donor.STEP to Change will leave empowered multipliers in 4 continents, trained professionals, a global report on Impact of IVS and a first global diagnosis of the IVS movement, basis for a common strategy for a long-term Empowerment & Monitoring programme for the movement.

It is an undeniable fact, shared among a majority of youth organisations, that European Solidarity Corps (ESC) has brought new perspectives for volunteering in Europe. The programme was first announced in 2016 by Jean-Claude Juncker during his State of EU speech, surprising all organisations active in the field of youth. Thanks to its ambitious plan it aims to reach 100000 young people until 2020, while the European institutions have all agreed to continue its implementation further on, with an increased budget allocation for the new Multi-annual Financial Framework. The ESC is built upon the successful implementation of the previously known as European Voluntary Service programme, a flagship programme of the EU for the last 20 years. Even though similarities between the two programmes are evident, there are new elements introduced with its major one being the Volunteering Teams. Volunteering Teams in its core idea involve from 10 to 40 young people for a period of 2 weeks to 2 months supporting a local community through an international volunteering project. Over the last 100 years of its existence, the International Voluntary Service movement has been developing international workcamps as its core activity, which now have been recognised by the EU through the creation of an EU Programme, the European Solidarity Corps and the insertion of the concept of volunteering teams therein. Every year, more than 5000+ local projects are organised with the participation of more than 40000 international volunteers from all over the world. While ESC is an opportunity both for youth organisations and young people, the programme also poses certain threats to already existing forms of youth participation and engagement being developed and implemented by youth organisations. The new programme and procedure through the new platform (PASS) also shake up our ways of working, ensuring good quality of exchanges, volunteers preparation and projects itself.Consequently, the project aims to ensure the sustainability of the international volunteering activities, whether funded by an EU programme or being funded by organisations’ own sources as well as to upscale already existing methods that will lead to increased quality and recognition of youth work and volunteering in Europe. Through a thorough identification of the already existing practices and the methodological analysis, the consortium will be able to present standardised methods and tools for youth workers and volunteering organisations working in the field of international volunteering and mobility. The main objectives of this project include:- identify best practice, successful working methods and tools for the development of volunteering team activities within the IVS movement, and extended,- standardise and upscale existing practice in the field of International Volunteering,- increase the quality of youth work through enhanced methodological planning, preparation, mentoring and follow up of volunteering team activities,- disseminate the project results to other stakeholders implementing volunteering teams,- ensure empowerment, by upscaling the impact of international mobility for the integration of young people with fewer opportunities, migrants and refugees in local and international actions for social change.Based on the experience of the organisations participating in the project, we aim to analyse the current reality, exchange and standardise good practice and be able to multiply the results to other IVS organisations implementing ESC Volunteering Teams. Through this project and the produced outcomes, the partnership aims to improve the quality of the projects offered as well as extend the practice already in place with more than 100 youth/volunteering organisations in Europe.