Contigo somos más
Start date: Sep 15, 2015,
End date: Jun 14, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
This was an intercultural project, which involved a young volunteer from Estonia, with the aim of expanding the possibilities of non-formal learning for all parts: herself, for local volunteers and the beneficiaries of voluntary activities. This volunteer together with the other parts in the project took part of a project that has been running for four years and it is called "DO YOU WANT TO VOLUNTEER?" It aims to promote civic values and creating a caring and responsible citizen.
This project enhanced volunteers’ acquisition in the essential abilities to be agents of development of the society and social changes: to hold a wide view of the actual world and a complete overview on social reality, to be proactive in resolution of social problems, teamwork, to search for more creative solutions and so on.
Interaction with other young people from different cultural background enhanced both quality and quantity of solutions that were proposed in order to solve these diverse problems. This resulted in cultural enrichment of people who benefited from the project, who otherwise, might not have had the chance to get in touch with other cultures.
Throughout all the activities that were held, we searched a way to reinforce civic responsibility of young people, solidarity, self-fulfilment, and social integration.
The European volunteer, worked with children who have integration and adaptation problems, as well as special needs education, had the opportunity to learn how to deal with them from professional trainers and other experienced volunteers and also was able to expose any other initiatives. During the activities along with Spanish volunteers the volunteer showed his/her own country and learned the local culture. This way, cultural reapprochement and mutual enrichment was achieved.
This project causeed a deep impact on several levels:
- The European volunteer was meant to improve his/her communication skills to people with special needs, ethic compromise and to reinforce his values such as solidarity, justice and help people in need. A certain knowledge and understanding of Spanish culture and traditions was also seeked.
- For Spanish volunteers an opening and respect to the others and an improvement on interpersonal relationships was achieved thanks to the promotion of relationships with people from other cultures.
- And for people who benefit from the project we promoted an improvement on interpersonal relationships and adaptation to new situations. We also aimed to provide them with the opportunity of discovering new situations and cultures, and the chance to do other activities and workshops than the usual ones.
Long-term benefits from this project are not quantifiable. All persons involved within the project (European volunteers, local volunteers, beneficiaries) were binformed that they are participating in a European Volunteer project and that many of the activities that were held could not take place without the cooperation of volunteers from another European country. The European volunteer acquired long-standing abilities that would help to improve his own social environment, becoming an outstanding civil-mindedness reference.