Volunteers 4 All

Futuro Digitale is partner of the project

Volunteers 4 All

ID Project: 2017-2-BG01-KA205-036416
Running dates: 01-10-2017 / 31-05-2019
Partners:

• • Alternativi International (Bulgaria)
  • Asociacion Projuven (Spain)
  • Futuro Digitale (Italy)
  • OJEB (Austria)

Website:  (in progress)
 e-learning:  (in progress)

Summary

The number of people seeking refugee status in Europe has soared over recent years. This is due in large part to war in Syria and Iraq. As thousands of refugees and migrants move across Europe, many are making use of technology in order to make their journey safer and share life-or-death information. For refugees coming from war-torn Syria or Iraq, the digital infrastructure is as essential as food and shelter. It is a blessing but also a curse. The digital traces that they leave behind make refugees vulnerable to surveillance, intimidation and exploitation by state and non-state actors. Fears about security and privacy force them to depend upon unreliable and alternative sources circulating on social media by smugglers, dealers and handlers. Going digitally underground, for example by using closed platforms like WhatsApp, exposes refugees to even greater risks.

Nevertheless, there are gaps inside NGOs as to how ICTs and social media are employed by volunteers and youth workers for the purpose of helping migrants before, during and after their migration journey, as well as related to the use of social media by migrants for integration in host countries, to maintaining family relations, sustaining cultural identities and in supporting a family from abroad. NGOs opening new communication channels through social media and empowering their volunteers with new social media skills can transform migrant networks and thus facilitate migration by creating a rich source of “insider knowledge” on migration.

Volunteers 4 All (V4A) aims to foster digital skills of volunteers and youth workers in order to provide support to refugees during their journey to Europe but also to promote social inclusion, tolerance, respect for diversity and non-discrimination and to raise awareness.

All participants’ involved in the project will be youth workers or volunteers interested in working and dealing with young refugees and interested in the use of social media in their daily work of youth workers/volunteers.

All the 24 participants that will participate to the training event (C1) will sign up a specific agreement with their sending organizations where will be set as duty the responsibility to attend obligatory the training event but also to take all the e-learning courses (IO1) from the project website and to participate to other local dissemination activities that will take place in each partner organization overall the life of the project. 30 people will join the multiplier event (E1) and other 500 people will participate indirectly to the project.

All activities have been planned according to the SMART principle and happened through a non-formal education method. This is to say that partners have previously agreed on and working towards: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound objectives.

Results

1. The project is directly aimed to youth workers and volunteer team in the field of youth and migrants issues. They will benefit from educational content to improve their management skills regarding to youth work.
2. The youth workers will benefit in terms of motivation, commitment, tools and methods. Their level of skills will improve and these skills will be also transferable to other volunteer engagements or even in the job market.
3. Youth workers and other organizations staff involved in learning activities will benefit from improved youth work: more committed and motivated youth workers, more consistency between regardless of youth workers involved in learning activities. This results in creating more impact in the awareness raising activities and extended learning opportunities in the field of youth.
4. Organisations involved will benefit from improve processes and results, therefore optimize available resources for new activities such as tackling the radicalisation of youth and new opportunities. The project aims to contribute to sustainability and capacity building of the organization.

Therefore the project will eventually results in the creation of self-sustained initiatives and activities in the field of youth. After the project implementation, the collaborative networks and cooperation consortiums of the partnering organisations will be an important channels to reach the target groups and disseminate the project further. Annual and peridocial international conferences, seminars, workshops and other meetings, which are based on active working methods with sessions, workshops and seminar presentations, will provide excellent forums for reaching the project target groups and disseminating the project results. Thus the results of the project benefit not only the consortium members, but also the organisations throughout Europe, even globally.