Quality management – quality volunteering

Training course for youth workers/specialists/volunteers

22-27 February, 2022

The project aim was to address specific needs in volunteer management, recognition and supports the capacity of organisations, which work in the field of volunteering. The project contributed to Erasmus+ program priorities in the promotion of active citizenship, equity, social inclusion, solidarity and sense of initiative of young people. This project invested on the skills and competencies and quality improvements in youth work to strengthen links between the youth field and the labor market. Besides, it focused on the international dimension of youth activities and searches opportunities for cooperation and mobility with partner countries by laying a foundation for a volunteer network.

32 youth workers from 8 European countries participated in the training course from Lithuania, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Italy, Croatia, Portugal.

Feedback of the participants:

I’m Daniela and for me this is the first experience of Erasmus Plus, I was able to participate in this project thanks to my friend Emre. In the past I have done several voluntary actions, in the festivals in my city and took part in a solidarity event such as when there was an earthquake in Albania. I helped an association to collect clothes for people affected by the disaster. I have helped for years in a kennel in my city. I also spent one year of national civil service, working for a “EPT“- a tourist agency. The topics we dealt with were not new to me, but the language and the context of the new experience were new to me. I was able to meet people from different cities of Europe, it was interesting to learn from their experiences. I think the methodology of the explanation about volunteering was very clear and efficient. The games were fun. I hope to be able to take part in other projects that concerns cultural and environmental initiatives. Thanks for this amazing experience and next time give us a day off :)!!

***

In February of 2022 I participated in a training course called Quality Management - quality volunteering. On the first day activities were oriented around meeting each other and the rest of the days we learned about what is volunteering and how to organize volunteering projects. We debated, made posters, came up with stories etc. I liked when we went on a trip to a nearby town the most. It was good team building. I also liked that we learned how to organize a project ourselves. The biggest problem was with very limited time to do bigger tasks - that made activities more stressful. What inspired me the most were the people participating in the project. Being surrounded by people from other countries with different cultures and interests is very useful for learning about teamwork. The thing that we all had in common was our interest in volunteering. Outside of the activities we got a chance to explore Vilnius (and nearby places). After participating in this project, I feel I have learned a lot about volunteering, I feel more capable of organizing some type of project in the future and I am motivated to volunteer more (I was mostly inspired by other participants who have a lot of experience with volunteering). I would definitely recommend to others to go to projects like this because it is very important for self - growth.

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Personal experiences

This week I participated in activities with a lot of strangers from different backgrounds and it ended as one of the most fun, important and knowledgeable week of this year, if not my own life. This experience brought a lot of light in my well-being, as well as in information and teamwork into my professional and personal life.

Project results

For the first time I discovered that I am capable of designing my own Erasmus+ project and that I can manage myself too, although it is pretty difficult. Being here showed me all it takes is an idea (at first) but also dedication, organisation and being hardworking. In the end I designed two projects, one being about sustainability and the environment and the other being “Women in the workplace” about feminism and gender equality.

Competences

Knowledge: impact, volunteering, budget planning, how NA helps…

Skills: organising, public speaking, writing, brainstorming.

Attitude: teamwork, energising, entertaining.

Culture

For me the snow was the most interesting part because I have never been to such a cold city. Also in general, Lithuanians aren’t very friendly but fortunately I’ve made Lithuanian friends and international cool ones too.

***

My personal experience of the projects is mostly positive, the negativity that made its way to me was only from the current events in the world. I was able to absorb a lot of relevant information on how to create and manage a project and work with volunteers which I loved. I think this is a very successful project as it provides a lot of skills and tools that will be useful when I’m actually bringing to create my own project.I guess it would be best for all of us here to create our own projects and keep up the good work. As always the different cultures and perspectives were useful for broadening my horizons on all topics discussed. P.S. A little more free time will be better as it will give time to evaluate and better understand the material without burning out.

***

For me (Giovanna) this is my first training course. After my Erasmus Program + with my university. I really liked the aura that it created on the first day. I really, also liked the people, very bright and funny people that I met. My future work…

For mee (Mihai) this was not my first project in which I participated. In particular, I enjoyed this project because it offered me a multitude of information about recording volunteering and project management. Since I worked with volunteers in the ESC program, I believe that this information will help me in my professional career and also in my personal life.

We (Giovanna) and Mihai) think that this project gives us the possibility to improve our competences:

Active listening
English speaking skills (vocabulary)
Multilingual competence, since we learned several expressions in Lithuanian, Italian, Romanian and Portuguese.
We shared our cultures.
We learned all the names of our teammates.
We fully enjoyed the connection of our group that has grown every day that passed.
We understood the importance of volunteering in society.

We will share with our NGO’s the elements that we have learned during this T. C. by having meetings with our members. We will also share our experience with our friends, family, colleagues to try to guide them to participate in Erasmus Plus project. We are so happy that we had a chance to participate in this TC and we want to say thanks to all the trainers involved.

***

This training course brought me personally a new view and perspective on volunteering I wasn’t aware of earlier. This training course was my first one so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. On our first day we got to meet each other better and I think that part was well organized as it helped us to break the ice between people. Also the part I personally liked was “forcing” everyone to remember each other’s names and not letting us do it “on ourselves” -this might be the detail that connected us on another level. During the debate (agree/ disagree/ middle) I learned about different perspectives of volunteering and other people’s point of views. I think in order to do something and to participate in something it’s important to also understand other points of views. The thing that kind of surprised me was the complexity of the whole volunteering management cycle process: so many things I wouldn’t think of, small details etc. The part I personally liked the most was visiting the Youth center in Širvintos and Musninkai because we didn’t just learn something new and expanded our knowledge but also had the chance to meet the culture of those people and see a little part of their habits, hear some traditional music etc.

I think I got a chance to improve my management skills on some certain level. One thing I prefer we had more was more time for some certain activities that were more complex (which also means more interesting!) for example, organizing that event on our second day or the project on our last day - dealing longer (but on different levels) with the same topics rather than shorter but with 10 more topics would contribute more to the quality. Also going straight to the point when talking/ debating rather than mentioning all other things by the side would make my personal impression better. BUT I would still recommend this training to anyone and would do it again!

***

I was really excited to participate in this Training Course. I don’t think I came with too many expectations, because I know every Erasmus+ program is different from each other.

Even though some of the workshops were really tiring, because we had to create things from scratch and work themes I never did before, I really learned a lot and I think I can apply in my nowadays life most of the things I learned. For me it was really important to get to know more ways to volunteer and to organize volunteering projects. Now, I really want to make one project and I don’t find it as difficult/ impossible to do, as I felt when I began the Training Course.

I didn’t enjoy the fact that we had to move from the hotel to a new building for the workshops, because the weather was not always pleasant.

I also wished that we could have built a better group environment. I don’t think this is anyone’s fault, I think it has to be also about the short time of the project (just 5 days). I feel that we learned a lot, but at times I also felt the pressure, because of the lack of time to talk about everything calmly and explain each step better.

I am aware that the group wasn’t that active responding to the training activities sometimes, but I don’t know we could improve that, I always felt that there was some kind of gap, like there were too many groups.

I think I learned to be more patient while working with others and also to work faster under pressure.

I really enjoyed most of the activities and the creative way they were presented. Also, thank you for taking us to explore another village and an opportunity to get to know youth workers from Lithuania. I wish we had more time to chat with them (because I felt that I had to choose between visiting the place or getting to know people).

Maybe there should have been more people during cultural nights so we could get to know each other's cultures better. Also there can be some snacks for the coffee breaks.

I am really grateful for all this experience in its good and bad sides. I hope both the trainers and the organisation keep doing a good job.

***

My personal experiences

It has been a long time since the pandemic began. I didn’t travel for a long time so I was really excited at first. I spent a lot of time and effort to come here. I didn’t know what would be waiting for me here. But the moment I stepped in here a friendly environment met me and all my doubts were gone. The participants were great, the trainers were perfect and the food was delicious. Today is the last day I am here so I am a bit upset that I’m leaving. I wish I could spend a few days more.

I have been far away from Erasmus+ for a very long time and I expanded my knowledge. I got aware of the opportunities and got many new and fresh ways of thinking.

I think I improved my communication and listening competences. I renewed my ways of critical thinking and making new friends.

I will keep in touch with participants and trainers for new chances and opportunities in the future.

I loved the country (Lithuania) and the food here. It was a bit cold but nearly as cold as my hometown.

If someone would ask me “would you like to come again to such a project?” my answer would definitely be YES!!!

Thanks for everything you gave us.

***

Personal experiences: I feel in love with this country, people are so warm and I love the places. As for the activities, they seemed very well executed, I learnt a lot of things from them, which I will definitely apply in the near future.

Project results: I never knew I was capable of writing a project but I was surprised to find that it was very enjoyable and I will try to write one in the near future,

Competences: I learned a lot of useful things, when I return to my country I will work with volunteers and participants from other projects to train them, and this project helped me a lot to understand and improve my skills and attitude towards training the volunteers.

Follow-up ideas: After this project I will submit my own project.

Culture: This culture is very interesting, I have never visited this country, and I was pleasantly surprised by the many similar things we have in common. I really enjoyed my visit to the traditional community.

***

I never thought I could live so much in just one week, of course, I had expectations but they were just overcome by miles. Starting with people, I want to say that I really enjoyed Serdar and Zivile, not only friendly but also because of their fun and active personalities, and I’m sure we’re really lucky to have such outgoing people as coordinators. About my collogues now, I have no doubts that they were/ are incredible and their company was the best thing I could find in this project. I don’t remember feeling so loved in my life like I did this week, everyone was supportive, funny and they seemed to enjoy my company as I enjoyed them too!

The city of Vilnius is pretty dark, but pretty damn colourful. Every city has “underground” and alternative floors,

but Vilnius it's just that on his own. In Vilnius I was for the first time and that is one of the things I will remember

forever.

Finally, about the project I can say that I couldn’t ask for more. The information, the tools and the knowledge

I bring home after this experience are uncountable. I feel like I’m more planed individual and youth mentor for my

colleagues.

THANK YOU

***

I am Muhammad Usman, citizen of Pakistan and resident of Italy. I am a vlogger. I like traveling, exploring new adventures or new things, so that’s why I applied to participate in “Training Courses” and “Youth exchanges”. In the month of January 2022, I found the training course in “Vilnius” “Lithuania” and I applied for it and, luckily, I was chosen for this project. I was very excited to meet new people, learn new skills and do something for my society/ community. Then everything was fixed and planned but the main thing was that I didn’t want to travel alone, so I found friends who also were living in Italy but see!! I never met them so we made a plan to go together to “Vilnius”. Firstly, we felt very shy but as you know, if you meet someone for the first time, you just feel uncomfortable. Finally, we arrived at “Vilnius” and when I met the organizers and the teachers, I felt very relaxed, because if the trainers are good you can learn more than you expect. As much as training it is important to make good relations, good friends are also very important to spend your time on a project great. My experience was very good. I got so many friends, but, as you know, you can be close to those people, whom you connect with soul. So my close friend is Camila from Portugal. I really missed her and also the memories that we made together. I think this is going to be emotional… So now I will talk about my experiences and what I’ve learned. In this project I learned the actual meaning of volunteering and learned the reasons why we should volunteer and also learnt management skills and last but not least I found myself in a better way.

Cultural night during the project was really nice, because you have to understand all cultures if you really want to make contact with the people of all nationalities and also realised the urban side of Lithuania, that was very nice.

From my side, everyone should join these types of projects, because your community and society need your service and your love.