Description
Through this project, The Romanian Association for Culture, Education and Normality – ARCEN together with Pro.Do.Mo. Association and Beneva Association seek to address the problem of low involvement of young people aged 14 to 19 in volunteering activities. The project offers a program of training oriented towards specific activities usually carried on by NGOs and cultural institutions. This approach is comprised by the concept of “competent volunteering” which we wish to promote as a model of recruitment and involvement of young people in the structures of NGOs and cultural institutions. Thus, the program will be focused on the domains in which the NGO partners work, namely architecture, patrimony, culture and socio-urban. The participant students will be able to get involved in specific activities in these domains that will support the projects in progress of the NGO partners and those of the cultural institutions involved. The partnership between NGOs working in connected domains and the collaboration with cultural institutions will offer a wide variety of activities for which at least 100 students from 5 high schools in Bucharest will be trained.
Summary of project results
The project “We are the city – competent volunteering” aimed at training and involving young volunteers in projects related to the urban life and environment. 85 high-school students in Bucharest and 15 young volunteers (ARCEN members) attended training sessions in order to achieve competences in "Architecture”, “Heritage” and "Cultural Institutions”. As a follow-up to the trainings, the 100 young volunteers got involved in organising events and developing practical activities in the community by applying the newly achieved competences. They organised a guided tour in the Armenian neighbourhood of Bucharest during which the young volunteers talked about the architecture and the history of the area in front of hundreds of people attending the event. The volunteers that attended the module on heritage documented and indexed 129 buildings from protected areas, the index being available online. An interactive visiting brochure was developed for the Zambaccian Museum. Volunteers also contributed to set a story-point at the “Women on Mătăsari” urban festival and presented a mini-documentary consisting of interviews with the locals (they got involved with ideas and practical work, they did research, took interviews with people of Mătăsari neighbourhood, they wrote, edited and guided the cultural tour and they designed the brochure). The guided tour raised awareness on the Armeneasca neighbourhood, while the index of the 129 buildings in 2 protected areas sustain their protection; the interactive visiting brochure contributed to the increase of the number of visitors at Zambaccian Museum and now offers new ways of visiting.
Summary of bilateral results