Back to the Future! Volunteers returned from overseas to engage in DEAR in Germany, Ireland and Poland

With a kick-off workshop in Esslingen (Germany) on end of May 2011 a new project in cooperation between partners from Germany (finep), Ireland (Comhlamh) and Poland (SWM) has been launched. The horizon of DEAR in Europe will soon be enriched by activities aiming at empowering returned volunteers to become development education multipliers. Financed by the European Commission in the framework of NSA LA in Development, (the Development Education Programme of the EuropeAid Office) the 36-month project will target 2250 volunteers by the end of the implementation period, raising high expectations and even higher excitement among the partners.

The initiative is the result of a meeting among partners during TRIALOG’s Partnership Fair in 2010, and a common view on the problem of low involvement of returned volunteers, with a parallel difficulty of low capacity among volunteer sending organisations to adequately support the volunteers. Therefore, the work plan includes direct work with the volunteers (training scheme, publications, supporting small-scale actions), and activities targeting Sending Organisations and Development Education institutional actors (meetings, consulting, capacity building, among others). Advocacy and promotional activities are planned, in order to mainstream the issue tackled, with a conference in Warsaw, Poland planned for autumn 2011, in the framework of the European Year of Volunteering and the Polish Presidency period.
For further information on the project you can contact the partners in respective countries: Germany: Kai Diederich, Ireland: Grainne O'Neill, Poland: Elzbieta Jakubek.

Check also the Facebook fanpage.

Information provided by Elzbieta Jakubek (SWM Poland) in cooperation with Comhlámh, Finep