Federation WRK ZOP in partnership with four non-governmental organizations, namely: Clube Volei of Évora (Portugal), Hodina H. (Czech Republic), Eurosozial (Germany) and the Centre for Intercultural Dialogue (Macedonia) implemented the project „Volunteering Management LAB”, co-financed from the budget Erasmus +, since May 2016.
Implementation of the project increased the powers of the competence of people working with volunteers, including management and youth workers and volunteers themselves. Such projects are important, because beyond the passion, commitment and heart, knowledge of volunteering management is needed for to improve it and to bring a good change in local communities. Volunteering creates a climate for even more activity of a social group, environment, etc. And this is reflected in the quality of the organization, its future actions and the perception of the organization by the environment.
The culmination of the project was 7-day workshop in Poznan (19-25.09.2016), which was attended by a total of 26 participants, who are engaged in volunteer work every day, in different roles. As organizers, we were keen to acquired knowledge and mutual inspirations , including the exchange of experience in the management of volunteering, because it’s good for better quality of volunteering and potential cooperation.
What we did at the workshop? Every day we met in the international circle. Active participation in training sessions, not only participants improved their the ability to use the English language, they increased their knowledge of various methods of diagnosis of volunteer needs: analysis and sustaining motivation, effective communication and conflict resolution methods and monitoring and evaluation of volunteer work. We discussed about forms of termination of cooperation with the volunteer, of channels of information and promotion, both at local, regional, national or European. Trainers took care of a rich repertoire of non-formal methods like eg. role-playing, brainstorming, reflection groups, debate, simulations, games. The whole workshop was interspersed with integrating games, that kept the energy and commitment of a group of participants at a high level. We organized jointly intercultural evening, each of the Partners made a presentation of his country, organization, there were also local delicacies and endless conversations. We had a panel of international and local NGOs and organizations involved in volunteering, to exchange good practices, to talk about the successes and failures in the area of volunteering. It was valuable experience!
The result of intensive cooperation was to create a TOOLKIT. This tool containing a good portion of the knowledge, methods, recommendations in the management of volunteering. This work has many authors and is not completely closed, because we are still open to update it.
Toolkit PDF version to download:
VOLUNTEERING MANAGEMENT LAB TOOLKIT for volunteers and organizations
Movies
„Report from the project Volunteering Management LAB”
„Volunteering is for me…. ?”
We encourage the dissemination and sharing knowledge!
Added value is a surprise prepared entirely by the participants of the project: a spontaneous flashmob in Poznan: „Lost in Biedronka, but not in the volunteering, The” Changemakers ”
You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4roXqgvePmw&t=2s
Enjoy it!
