The European Solidarity Corps (ESC) programme is the key programme in Europe for young people to engage in quality volunteering and solidarity activities across the continent.
It brings together young people to build a more inclusive society, supporting vulnerable people and responding to societal and humanitarian challenges. It offers an inspiring and empowering experience for young people who want to help, learn and develop themselves. It provides a single entry point for such solidarity activities throughout the European Union and beyond.
The programme is driven by as well as it is a powerful driver for the European Values, at the 1st range of them Solidarity, Human Rights and Democracy.
Build on the legacy of the previous EU programme “European Voluntary Service”, the ESC has an enormous potential to become larger, stronger, more visible and impactful.
It appeals young people, organisations from the solidarity sector and political deciders all over Europe to work together for a stronger, values based European construction.
Concretely, the ESC is implemented via complementary types of action :
- Volunteering Projects: they offer opportunities for young people to take part in solidarity activities contributing to the daily work of participating organisations, to the ultimate benefit of the communities within which the activities are carried out. Volunteering is a full-time24 unpaid activity that has a duration of up to 12 months. This type of solidarity activity is undertaken through participating organisations that offer young people the opportunity to carry out a wide variety of activities, in a structured way. The scope of volunteering projects is broad, covering a wide range of areas, such as environmental protection, climate change mitigation or greater social inclusion.
- Volunteering Teams : they are solidarity activities that allow teams of participants coming from at least two different countries to volunteer together for a period between 2 weeks and 2 months. In volunteering teams, European Solidarity Corps’ volunteers carry out tasks for a project over a short period of time (usually, but not exclusively, during holidays, breaks between study periods, transition from education to work, etc.). Examples of the valuable work that can be accomplished by a team over a short period of time include: e.g. restoring cultural heritage damaged by natural or man-made disaster, catering for species threatened by extinction; organising educational activities in refugee camps, etc.
- Solidarity Projects: is a non-profit solidarity activity initiated, developed and implemented by young people themselves for a period from 2 to 12 months. It gives a group of minimum five young persons the chance to express solidarity by taking responsibility and committing themselves to bring positive change in their local community. The project should have a clearly identified topic which the group of young people wish to explore together and which has to be translated into the concrete daily activities of the project and involve all the members of the group. Solidarity Projects should address key challenges within the communities, where relevant including those identified jointly in the border regions and it should also present European added value. Participation in a solidarity project is an important non-formal learning experience through which young people can boost their personal, educational, social and civic development.
- Humanitarian Aid Volunteering: activities implemented under the European Voluntary Humanitarian Aid Corps aim at contributing to providing needs-based humanitarian aid aimed at preserving life, preventing and alleviating human suffering and maintaining human dignity and to strengthening the capacity and resilience of vulnerable or disaster-affected communities. Humanitarian Aid Volunteering projects funded under this strand will offer the opportunity to young people aged 18 to 35 years old to participate in volunteering activities, aiming at supporting humanitarian aid operations. Such activities will provide young people with the opportunity to carry out tasks needed to support the activities undertaken by their host organisation.
For any information about European volunteering, about how to become a volunteer and to be labeled as participating organization, we invite to address the official bodies of the European programme :
- European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA)
- National Agencies in each participating country
- SALTOs
- European Solidarity Corps resource centre.
Young people and organizations from Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Serbia and Sapin (Catalunya) are obviously welcome to directly contact one of the CLIC partner organisations :
Find more volunteering organizations, thanks to our network “the ALLIANCE of European Voluntary Service Organisations”
