Description
Association for the Development of Social Services and Educational CATHARSIS proposes Be a volunteer for your community! project in response to the need for training of volunteers in the National Strategy for Community Action, the largest voluntary national program for high school students in Romania. The objectives are to achieve a guide for SNAC volunteers, to train 50 volunteers from across the country and implementation of at least 10 community projects, with at least 500 beneficiaries. The course consists of personal development workshops, advocacy, project management. Once trained, the 50 teens will continue to work in SNAC at least two years from now, for the good of school and local community. Guide developed will be made available to all volunteers (teachers and students) in the country to help in the implementation of Community Action, using interactive methods and strategies. Primary target group are students volunteers and the secondary are voluntary teachers, families and fellow volunteers, local communities.
Summary of project results
The National Strategy of Community Action (SNAC) is one of the most developed volunteering programmes in Romania, with over 80,000 volunteers and beneficiaries involved. The community service is certified and tested, and it implies the intervention of students and teachers in disadvantaged areas. During the implementation of the project, a training camp was organised and delivered to 50 young volunteers and 10 teachers (SNAC coordinators) from 10 Romanian high-schools, selected to participate in the project. The volunteers, who came from Constanta, Teleorman, Iasi, Vaslui, Neamt, Bistrita, Dolj and Mures counties, developed during this programme practical abilities and knowledge in project management, communication, teambuilding, animation, theatre, learned techniques for working with children with special needs; gained knowledge about organising events and creating a fundraising strategy. After the training, a support network for volunteers was created based on a Facebook group. The young volunteers implemented 10 community projects for around 700 beneficiaries. The making and the dissemination of a training guide for volunteers, based on the experience of professionals from the nonformal education domain, may now help SNAC become one standardised volunteering programme, available in all high-schools in Romania. The guide was printed and also translated into English. Taking into account the dedication and efficiency of the 10 young teams of volunteers in implementing their projects for the community, their activities were described and included in the guide and their work was valued in an award festivity organised by project partners during the final conference of the project, hosted by the National Palace of Children in Bucharest. The amazing collaboration among the four partners constitutes the base of an upcoming, more developed partnership.
Summary of bilateral results