We would like to introduce you to an interactive document that targets cooperation with volunteers who have returned from a workcamp or another volunteer experience. It is an output from the Erasmus+ Key Action 2 project Key to Support Participants at their Active Citizenship Engagement (K-SPACE), delivered by INEX-SDA (Czech Republic), Egyesek Youth Association (Hungary) andInternationale Begegnung in Gemeinschaftsdiensten (Germany), funded through the European Commissions’ Erasmus + Program to support international mobility in education.
The first part of the document deals with the strategy of working with volunteers and their further involvement, either as part of the activities of a non-profit organisation or in the sense of individual own volunteer initiative. This strategy was developed on the basis of research involving quantitative (questionnaire survey) as well as qualitative (in-depth interviews) approaches. Using these methods, an analysis was developed which reflected volunteers' preferences in relation to other volunteering activities. Within the strategy a bunch of specific topics are discussed – such as volunteers' motivation, methods, promotion, fundraising or impact measurement. The educational spiral and its link to the strategy is also explained.
The second part of the document (Toolbox) contains a spectre of post-arrival volunteering activities which were proposed by the cooperating organisations. These volunteering activities (One Day Volunteering, Campleader Abroad) have been tested twice during the project, so the information included in the document reflects practical experiences of the participants. As part of the Toolbox, session plans focused on post-arrival reflection and evaluation were also created (and repeatedly tested). Also, INEX-SDA’s platform called INEXup is presented there as another important concept that ensures a supervision of initiative of volunteers who would like to start their own project, and thus can serve as an inspiration for other organisations. Last but not least, a system of referents is included which serves as promotional support in regions consisting of the former workcamp participants.
This is just the basic overview of what you can find inside. In fact, you can discover much more there!
We hope that this document will be useful for you and your organisation and that it will contribute to a bigger involvement of returning volunteers into more volunteering activities as well as to understand volunteering as a part of the path of life which doesn’t end with the return from workcamp.
