The project “Culture-coding: Contributing to global culture of environmental concern’ involves partners from Serbia, Italy and Mexico along 22 months from 1/09/2020 till 1/07/2022. Its aim is to contribute to building a global culture of environmental concern.Personal experience and various forms of information, be it through media coverage, government campaigns or environmental education, will affect the development of environmental concern. However, such factors are obviously not the only ones that influence attitudes and beliefs. If we want to influence (young) people’s attitudes toward the natural environment, we must lead them to explore, contrast and understand how such attitudes are part of systems of interpretation and meaning – how they are imbedded in cultural patterns. For example, driving cars is a pivotal culture element for some working class youngsters, loaded with symbolic meanings regarding masculinity, technical skills and freedom. For them, information about the advantages (environmental or otherwise) of public transportation does not touch the core of the behaviour we want to alter. At the very core of environmental problems is an individual's understanding of his or her relationship with the natural environment. We would like to contribute to a global culture or environmental concern by unpacking individual’s understanding and values behind personal cultural patterns and life choices and how they impact the environment. The desired impact of the project is in the change of attitudes of young people, as agents of change, reflected in their life choices that have a lesser impact to the environment and a stronger commitment to a global culture of environmental concern.OBJ1: raise awareness among young people on how different cultural patterns impact the environment, and challenge their attitudes and values embedded in personal cultural patterns that have a negative impact to environmentOBJ2: establish an NFE methodology for use by youth workers that is easily implemented among young people, that challenges and shifts their attitudes and cultural identity towards being more environment friendly in their daily lives and advocate for its use among 50+ international youth organisationsActivities:• Kick-off meeting of partners, IT, 12/20• Training of leaders, RS, 4/21• Youth Exchange, MX, 7/21• Follow-up activities, all 3 countries, 8-10/21• Evaluation seminar, RS, 2/22It also includes creating and translating a brochure with a toolkit, examples of good practice and lessons learned and its dissemination to 50+ youth organisations worldwide.Target group: • young people aged 18-26; focus on outreach activities in order to bridge the participation gap to those underprivileged, mainly economically or otherwise intersectionally disadvantaged• youth workers in partner organisations• 50+ youth organisations reached through networks Alliance and CCIVS

Recognition of non-formal education in the formal system is one of the priority topics of European educational policies. The main reason is that non-formal education can flexibly respond to the needs of learners and develop the competences one needs to fulfill his/her roles in society and the labour market. Some of these are rarely developed in the formal education context (e.g., communication, cultural openness, decision-making, problem-solving, critical thinking), that’s why the universities are looking for ways to update their education systems to tackle more these competences of their studentsThe partner organisations of this project (INEX-SDA Czechia, IBG Germany, YAP Italy) have been part of the already 100 years old International Voluntary Service (IVS) movement, which connects the non-formal learning of young people with traditional volunteering activities (workcamps). By participating or leading such projects, young people vastly develop the above-mentioned competences, and therefore recognition of the programmes these NGOs develop helps the universities fulfill their curricula. Moreover, by this project, the NGOs had the opportunity to precise and increase the quality of the educational programme they are offering.The participants of this project (young people - future youth workers, currently students at the partner universities) went through an educational programme, consisting of: A) Training for leaders of voluntary projects B) Preparation phase, C) Leading the 2-3 week long activity, D) International multiplicators’ training E) follow-up multiplication activities. This cycle was based on non-formal education and was focused on the essential competences of these participants as well as on proper multiplication of their experiences among young people they work with and their peers. We piloted this cycle of activities twice (in 2019 in the Czech Republic, Germany and Italy with a final international reflection and multiplication activity in the Czech Republic; and in 2021 in the Czech Republic, Germany and France with a final international reflection and multiplication in Germany. All together, we involved around 70 young people directly. Thanks to the implementation of these activities, we properly elaborated on our activities in detail in pedagogical terminology. We described them properly and monitored the learning outcomes young people gained out of their participation. Having the research findings, it made it easier to start to speak the same “language” with the universities. As a result, we started working on systemic recognition of the non-formal education volunteering programme inside official curricula with more than 10 universities in the mentioned countries, while aiming to reach even more universities in the future by continuous work with the project results.Aim of the project was therefore to bridge formal and non-formal learning to support high-quality education in general and in youth work specifically by training multiplicators who will share about their experience and connect even more NGOs and universities. Our vision is to build many of such cooperation with an aim to help building an educated and conscious new generation.The objectives and target groups of the project were as follows:- to make young people and university teachers understand and experience the non-formal education approach - its nature, advantages and impact- to develop the competences of young people, complementary to those acquired during the formal education and to introduce them to the topics of voluntary work, active citizenship, critical thinking etc., to complete their profiles as qualified educated people and to let them to apply all the experiences in their work with young people - to motivate the young people attending this project to become active multipliers among their peers and teachers at universities, and among the young people they work with - to build trust and long-term cooperation between NGOs and Universities leading towards future recognition of the non-formal education programme based on volunteering in formal curricula - to build capacities of NGOs directly and indirectly involved (via international networks) in proficient methodical and pedagogical description of their non-formal education programmes. As a result of this project, we created an impact study on the educational programme – a research report on what competencies young people develop together with its methodological description (IO1 - the impact study), a short documentary movie explaining the whole educational process (IO1 - documentary movie) and a good practice handbook, which will be used mainly by universities and NGOs all over Europe so they can get inspired from our best practises and results (IO2 - good practice booklet) accompanied by session plans to the weekend training for project leaders (IO2 - weekend training methodology).

The common denominator to project partners is International Voluntary Service (IVS), particularly workcamps as tools for youth active participation and local sustainable development. The consortium organises more than 200 international short-term voluntary projects –workcamps, which host 3000+ international volunteers and involve 400+ youth leaders.11 partners are members of Alliance of European Voluntary Service organisations and one (Croma, Italy) brings an added value to the project with its specific profile of members – documentary film makers / youth workers. The involvement of the Alliance as a formal promoter assured wider visibility but also certified trainers in non-formal education with expertise in trainings of youth leaders in IVS projects.This consortium explored a new trend in IVS movement: exchange of youth leaders, as a response to a common challenge of decrease in number of youth leaders in the movement.Target group: Youth leaders of international volunteer groups gathered in workcampsGENERAL AIM: Innovate, support and give recognition to youth leadership in the field of international voluntary service within the network of 13 involved project partners from 9 countries and 100+ local stakeholders from Serbia, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, Estonia, Finland.OBJECTIVE 1: improve the level of key competences and skills of 23 youth leaders (10 from Serbia and 13 from Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, Estonia, Finland)OBJECTIVE 2: Foster an international/intercultural supportive environment and mentorship system for practicing youth leadership in IVS movementOBJECTIVE 3: Raise awareness of the importance of specialised youth workers in the IVS field – workcamp leadersThere are three groups of residential activities:• Act 1: International training of youth leaders (05/2017)• Act 2 - 12: Practice Phase: Exchange of youth leaders in International Voluntary Service projects among the applicant and the partners – coordination of 20 workcamps in Serbia, Spain, Turkey, Finland, France, Estonia, Germany, Czech Republic and Italy (summer 2017)• Act 13: Evaluation meeting (10/2017)The project also includes non-residential activities:• Production and promotion of a web documentary for raising awareness on the International Voluntary Service movement and the impact it has on young people, local and international communities, www.youthleaders.online • Mentoring system of youth leaders during their practice phase• Assessment of gained competencies of youth leadership and formal recognition with YouthPass and I’VE tool

The project “XCHANGE 2.0 - exchange of international youth leaders in International Voluntary Service” involves 13 partners from 8 countries and one European network where all are members – Alliance of European Voluntary Service Organisations. The coordinating organisation is Young Researchers of Serbia. Workcamps are their common denominator.Workcamp movement is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2020. It has always been avant-garde and innovative, so to exist this long. It used to involve women at the same level as men in times when most European countries didn’t allow women the right to vote. It declined to have any military or religious activities in workcamps, when it used to be the default. It has stood for solidarity in many times of crisis, precisely because of the dynamic nature of international youth volunteerism. Projects like XCHANGE help explore new innovative ways for the movement to address the needs of young people and youth organisations. XCHANGE is about the exchange of youth leaders, as a response to a common challenge of decrease in number of youth leaders in the movement.In the period between 4/12/2018 and 14/06/2020 the consortium provided a theoretical (training) and hands on experience (practice phase) to 15 youth leaders from Serbia and 20 from partners’ countries. The leaders coordinated 26 local community projects (workcamps) involving 350+ young volunteers from all over the world and later on continued to influence the volunteerism policies as active members of boards, working groups, pools of trainers, thus shaping the IVS movement as a peace movement.Objectives were:OBJ 1: raise the level of key competences and skills of youth leaders for the task of coordinating international volunteer projects (workcamps) abroadOBJ 2: Foster an international/intercultural supportive environment and mentorship system for practicing youth leadership abroad, deeply linked to local communities’ realities in countries other than one’s ownOBJ 3: raise awareness of the the practice and benefits of international mobility of youth workers for better social cohesion, intercultural understanding and more inclusive practices on local levelOBJ 4: support and facilitate strong and clear partnership and agreements among 14 organisations involvedActivities:• Kick-off meeting, January 2019, online• promotion campaign, recruitment of leaders, January-April 2019• two international trainings of youth leaders in IVS, April and May 2019, Serbia• practice phase: youth work abroad, 35 youth leaders exchanged between Serbia and other partners during the workcamps season of 2019• Support system for youth leaders by HOs during their practice phase, in all countries• promotional campaign -dissemination of results from the practice phase: upgrade of the web documentary www.youthleaders.online with a blog, translation, new stories from leaders, online among partners throughout the project• evaluation with leaders and SOs and certification September-december 2019, nationally• Evaluation meeting of partners, November 2019, online

Solidarités Jeunesses would like to propose a project on how voluntary projects impact the perception and representations one's have and thus on stereotypes that arise from it.Volunteering projects offer the opportunity to discover new cultures and habits through local organisations, consequently by living the daily life of the people, participating to a project serving the local communities and meeting different organisations answering local needs (environment, construction, social, etc).At the same time, volunteering offers learning opportunities while contributing to meaningful actions during the protection of cultural diversity and the improvement of living conditions.However to experience those projects led on the field by us, voluntary organisations, in many countries in the world, and to allow a change in the volunteers' perceptions of those countries, there is a need for an upstream work in terms of communication in order to increase the number of volunteers going to participate to voluntary project and consequently, supporting the implementation of projects. A great number of the young people are attracted by IVS and eager to contribute to this kind of actions. Despite this, the IVS movement are recording a dramatic decrease in the number of volunteers exchanged especially towards African countries.→ What are the causes of this phenomenon?→ Does the multiplications of other types of volunteering affect us?The will with this project is to identify key elements of our projects in order to communicate better on them for a higher recognition.For this project, we've decided to focus on the projects implemented by our partner organisations in Africa.Indeed too many times, we've noticed that the first words that come to the mind of people when thinking of Africa are: hunger, wars, poverty and refugees. The volunteers still come up with the idea that Africa needs “help”. Through the use of several methods and tools, this project aims at changing this perception and to support our partner organisations in the implementation of their projects.The objectives of the project is to:-To improve the perception of Africa and to develop a critical thinking dealing with mass media, in order to better communicate on IVS projects-To deconstruct stereotypesThose two objectives will lead us to our main one which is:-To increase the number of volunteers exchanged