Since the mental health challenges amongst youth are relevant both at regional and global levels it is valuable to share good practices from different cultures to address it. Due to this, Beautiful Mind International (BMI) project was created. BMI aims at enabling youth to take care of their mental wellbeing by providing them with skills to do so. The project uses an innovative Problem Management+ technique to teach youth cognitive behavioral therapy and problem-solving therapy strategies. After learning these, youth would be able to attain their own psychosocial needs. Moreover, BMI project aims to create an online info bank where the contacts of psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker or psychiatric nurse could be found in any partner country. This is a tool for youth to find the help they need at any place or time. Finally, BMI aims at destigmatising mental health topic, hence the educational communicational campaign and self-exploration courses (mindfulness exercises, meditation, yoga, Pilates, etc.) will be organized. All of the aforementioned activities will be implemented in Lithuania, Nepal, Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan. Briefly, BMI aims are as follows:1. To educate local youth and society through awareness campaigns; thus, destigmatising the topic, related fears and worries;2. To provide skills and tools for youth to take care of their mental health. In other words to enable youth on taking care of themselves. This will be done by self-exploration (mindfulness exercises, meditation, etc.) and self-support groups.3. To train youth workers to organize PM+ groups locally. In the long term, youth workers should identify young leaders, who could be trained PM+ methods to have a group of their own.

“Learning, Acting, Creating and Educating for Sustainable Development Goals” (LACE for SDGs) was an innovating project that aimed to address and give solution to the issues that are mentioned in 17 SDGs by involving youth initiative through a complete cycle of raising awareness of SDGs, training course and project piloting and evaluating. The project mainly targeted at youth, NGOs and the community, where youths live and struggle with problems in term of environment, human rights, poverty, etc. with the implementation between the two continents Europe and Asia in order to have the variety of innovation ideas to deal with problems that occur in daily lives.By using non-formal education methodology and youth-approach techniques, LACE for SDGs encouraged and inspired youth to contribute in achieving SDGs in their own community particularly, and their country in general. The two main objectives were described as:1)Contribute to the achievement of SDGs in the sphere of youth involvement.2)Strengthen and empower the Europe-Asia cooperationLACE for SDGs encouraged youth initiatives and youth inclusion by supporting and promoting democratic life in alignment of SDGs theme. The project provided the complete cycle to increase youth competencies and therefore foster professional development of staff and youth worker in ICT methodologies.Timetable for each activity realized in the project:1. Initial meeting 03-05.11.2017 November 20172. Call for submission 01.12.2017 – 28.02.2018 December-2017/ January-2018/February-20183. Training course 07-13.04.2018 April 20184. Piloting 01.05 – 30.07.2018 May / June /July 20185. Evaluation meeting 06-10.09.2018 August 2018

The White Paper for International Voluntary Service (2011-2021) draws the strategic objectives for Cultural Heritage and Diversity with the vision to ‘Preserving, protecting, and promoting cultural heritage and diversity through International Voluntary Service activities in order to foster mutual understanding and respect within the global community’. With the Strategic objectives to create:A. A global community where mutual understanding and respect are brought by active citizens that preserve protect and promote cultural heritage and diversityB. Develop and expand cooperation between organisations, institutions and government bodies in the field of Cultural Heritage and DiversityC. Raise awareness about the impact of IVS in cultural heritage and diversity issuesHeritage has been an important element of local communities where IVS organisations have set up projects since 1920 (1st workcamp). Throughout the years organisations, mainly in Europe, have developed cooperation with various stakeholders, involving young and adult volunteers in the protection, preservation and valorisation of our tangible and intangible heritage. This topic has been taken until recent years in other regions of the world demonstrating the value of non-formal learning as the IVS educational approach to disseminate the values and expertise developed at the inter-governmental level to a large public and in particular to young people, based on a dynamic dialogue between the different stakeholders.The aim of this project is to work towards the strategic objectives of the White Paper and to promote the work of IVS organisations and NFL, whilst valorising local customs and the diversity of these.The world is under an increasing threat from globalisation and extremism; these two factors contribute to the breaking down of cultural norms, traditions and the destruction and loss of heritage sites. This project will celebrate both tangible and intangible heritage and to revel in the diversity of this heritage. The applicant organisations propose actions which focus on food, culture, language, cultural and natural sites indigenous traditions …. etc. The aim is to be as diverse as possible and to show the richness of this diversity and to include local people as educators, emphasizing the bottom up approach of IVS and the work in local communities and with young people with fewer opportunities.The partners are grassroots IVS organisations from Africa, Asia and Europe for a 24 month project The different actions include:• Research, analysis and preparation phase (September 2016)• Stakeholders Forum (October 2016)• Capacity building trainings on Volunteer and Heritage Management ( April/May 2017)• Local Awareness Raising Actions (June 2017 – December 2017) • Global Communication Campaign (January 2017 – March 2018) • Final evaluation and dissemination meeting (April 2018)• Finalisation of the Impact measurement results and publication (April-August 2018)

The HAPPY project 2.0. was a global capacity building initiative engaging 6 youth organizations from 3 continents with the main aim to create the partnerships response for the urging global problem of youth unemployment, and find out how local and international volunteering can contribute in solving this problem.The specific objectives of the project were the following:a) to improve the expertise of the partnership, to enable them to work with NEETs more efficiently;b) Support unemployed young people and NEETs, and particularly those in long-term unemployment to build competencies that will give them better chances to be included in the labour market;c) To contribute to the development and empowerment of local volunteering structures in the partners´coutntires;d) Enhance active citizenship on local and global level within a group of traditionally passive (long-term) unemployed young people;e) Support development efforts in communities much in need in countries outside of Europe.The HAPPY project was implemented by a partnership of youth organizations in Spain, Hungary, Lithuania, Mexico, Nepal and Vietnam.The project had the following three main directions of action. The first one was the implementation of the International training of trainers and facilitators ¨Empowerment of Young people to fight youth unemployment¨ for youth workers, there the action plan how to involve NEETs into volunteering was created. Second stage was the local work, that included the outreach and trainings for local volunteers, engaging app 200 young people. Meanwhile as well there was a mobility of 20 EVS volunteers to Vietnam, Mexico and Nepal, the EVS activity lasting 5 and 6 months.The last stage of the Happy 2 project was the dissemination and exploitation of results.The whole project was based on the specifically-created HAPPY model. HAPPY stands for:· Help. The volunteer’s main task is to run a project in support of the local community. Volunteers use their time, energy and competencies to help those most in need, while at the same time helping themselves.· Absorb. The volunteering services should be done in a way to support the learning of the volunteers at a maximum in various personal and professional competencies..· Participate. Apart from their regular projects (usually service-oriented) the volunteers should be engaged in at least one other action as a manifestation of their active.· Promote. The volunteers that do volunteering services in another continent are perceived as ambassadors of global change. They will promote both the idea of volunteering as an act of active citizenship and the idea of sustainable global development.· Youth. Activities fitting the interests of the young people, being youth-friendly and fun!After the 2 year long project we have reached the impact desired, have involved much more young people into the process that we've planned, created a strong and effective partnership eager to continue collaborating in more projects.

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.