Alianza por Solidaridad is leading this Erasmus+ project “Across borders: strengthening youth volunteering to fight for gender equality and social inclusion” supported by the European Agency EACEA.
CB4VOL’s main objective is to strengthen the capacity of the consortium organisations to develop volunteering work at local level. At the same time, the project organisations will promote the participation of youth in their local communities, to improve awareness and knowledge about gender equality and inclusion.
The project objectives will be achieved through 4 Working Packages:
(1) Project and consortium management,
(2) Training and follow-up/ Monitoring,
(3) Volunteer pilot groups,
(4) Online campaigning for gender equality and inclusion.
This project targets young people (18-30 years of age) and specially young women from vulnerable backgrounds. These young people will become or enhance their capacity of local volunteers and they will not only work together at community level but also engage in exchanges (online and in-person) at transnational level.
CB4VOL’s main objective is to strengthen the capacity of the consortium organisations to develop volunteering work at local level. At the same time, the project organisations will promote the participation of youth in their local communities, to improve awareness and knowledge about gender equality and inclusion. The project is a collaboration between Alianza por La Solidaridad (in Spain), YWCA (in Palestine), Asticude (in Morocco) and WIDE+ (in Belgium/Europe). WIDE+’s main role is to contribute to the training of youth on gender equality, and also to coordinate the communication and dissemination aspects of the project.
For further information on this project, kindly contact Gea Meijers at info@wide-network.org.
Project outputs:
- Each organisation develops a Local Volunteering Programme.
- Training Materials, for organisations and for the volunteers, are produced on Volunteering, Gender Equality, Campaigning.
- Online Regional campaign and dissemination materials.
- Local public actions about the value of volunteering.
The project partners are currently finalising the final international campaign
WIDE+ CB4VOL campaign: Migrant Womxn Deserve Language at No Cost with public letter
In October 2023, the CB4VOL project campaign team that is part of WIDE+ conducted an online social media campaign, which can be found under the tags: #Language4Migrants, #LetThemSpeakUp, #IntegrateThem, and the overall CB4VOL project tag: #Volunteering4Equality, which highlights the campaign of our partner associations as well (click here for more).
The campaign strategy included a focus on sharing the lived experiences of migrant women in their language learning journeys that are residing in the EU, representing various countries. The team conducted extensive interviews, did desktop research and reflected on our own experiences to provide a picture of the importance of free language and the many barriers that exist to exercise this right. By doing so, the teams aims to bridge the gap of awareness surrounding language barriers, thereby fostering a more inclusive and informed society.
The team choose to focus on the accessibility of language as it discovered through discussion how important accessible language courses are for migrant women and gender-nonconforming persons. However, in many contexts across Europe the available language courses fail migrant womxn to swiftly integrate.
Open Letter: ”Migrant Womxn Deserve Language at No Cost”
The team has prepared a letter to outline barriers, impacts and recommendation. In sum, language barriers greatly deepen the vulnerability of migrant women. And it poses significant challenges to both the economic advancement of migrant women and their access to decent work. Proficiency in the local language is indispensable for female migrants to successfully navigate their new surroundings.
WIDE+ Resource Guide “Including Gender Equality in Youth Volunteerism: Tips, Concepts, and Methodologies”
This resource guide provides a brief contextualisation and introduction into including a gender equality perspective into youth volunteerism. It give references and examples to go deeper into the topic that can be of aid for any one setting up a volunteer project of programme on gender inclusion with young people. And young people in this guide is roughly taken as between 18 and 30 years of age, following the EU definition for youth while excluding minors. There are specific responsibilities for adult workers when working with underage volunteers, which is best addressed at another moment.
CB4VOL_Training on Gender Mainstreaming
Alianza por la Solidaridad’s Training on Local Volunteering
In order to help ensure that future work with volunteers is managed and developed in the most coherent and effective way possible, ActionAid Spain / Alianza por la Solidaridad has developed this volunteer management guide.It is a useful tool to establish the basis for management and work, taking into account the differences between organisations and the context that surrounds them. It can serve as material for other organisations that want to start working with local volunteers and for those that are already working with volunteers and want to incorporate new ideas or good practices to improve the processes and management of volunteering.
CB4VOL_Training on Local Volunteering
WIDE+ Training Curriculum on Online Campaigning
This is a training curriculum that introduces online campaigning to women’s rights organisations, civil society organisations and other NGOs working with youth volunteers to advocate for issues like gender equality, social inclusion, economic justice, and other related topics. It outlines a series of topics related to online campaigning. Online campaigning is the strategic use of digital technology to advance advocacy initiatives to create social or political change. This can be done via e-newsletters, websites, online messaging apps, or social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more. Online campaigning helps to make issues public, raises awareness, educates people and encourages them to participate in pushing for change. It also helps to highlight these issues by bringing them to the attention of stakeholders like governments, policymakers, civil society and the media.
To download the training curriculum, click on this link: CB4VOL – Training curriculum for online campaigning final_310123.