Videos

Pictures from the event on 9 of May, 
Training session - "The role of the relevant stakeholders and policy makers in development of volunteering practices and creation of quality and sustainable projects" and Celebration of day of Europe

Volunteering Platform Summary

General objective:  

- Promoting volunteering activities through developing and starting twinning relationships and networking of twinned towns of Bulgarian municipalities Popovo and Sofia, as well as the Macedonian municipalities Negotino and Gevgelija. 

Specific objectives are: 

- Promotion the concept of twinning between Negotino and Popovo; 

- Making relations for a permanent cooperation between both countries through creating of Volunteering Platform; 

- Sharing points of view about volunteering as a one of the main tools that stimulate active citizenship; 

 - Building of capacities of representatives from local authorities and NGOs for developing volunteering practices in great projects;

 The project will be realized in 3 phases: 

- Preparation;

- Implementation;

- Evaluation; 

The implementation activities are: 

- Organizing and realizing a training session "The role of the relevant stakeholders and policy makers in development of volunteering practices and creation of quality and sustainable projects"; 

- Organizing and realizing a Discussion Forum-Possibilities for volunteering exchanges  amongst involved Municipalities and presentation of European programmes, such as Europe for citizens/Creating a Volunteering Platform; 

- Research of volunteering - general condition of volunteering in each country, interest, knowledge, possibilities and benefits; Celebration of Day of Europe. 

Through this project the citizens, precisely people from Macedonia and Bulgaria, will have the opportunity to participate in events within the project activities in order to develop closer citizenship's relations, based on democracy, common values and mutual respect and understanding. 

According to the specific objectives, Municipalities of Negotino, Macedonia and Popovo, Bulgaria are already twinned and planned project activities will contribute for continuing, reinforcing and improving of already established twinning relations. The project involves also other partner Municipalities - Gevgelija, Macedonia and Sofia, Bulgaria so this is an opportunity for starting new twinning relationships and activities.

The activities are planned to take place from March 01, 2012, in order to emphasise the Celebration of Day of Europe - May 9th 2012.  

All the above mentioned will be realized with an active participation of Local authorities, public institutions, NGOs and young people in the main active role. The project activities will contribute to promote European values and informal learning through planned seminar and Discussion Forum. Generally the project proposal is aimed to promote the volunteering as an active European citizenship.

As a sustainable result of the project - a Platform of Volunteering will be created, which correlates with the European Year of Volunteering 2011. This Platform will be an excellent base for further activities/projects and establishing of permanent volunteering practices.

This project will contribute to development and improvement of twinning relationship and network of twinned towns of Macedonian municipalities Negotino and Gevgelija and Bulgarian municipalities Popovo and Sofia. Popovo and Negotino are in twinned relationships since 2002 year. During this time both municipalities have developed good cooperation, but this cooperation is based only on exchange of ensembles and delegations for festivals, once or twice of year. 

This project's objectives are focused on volunteering as "movement" for an active citizenship and citizen' participation. The proposed activities promote the volunteering as a non formal education that teach and prepare us to handle different situations. This is a thing that we cannot learn in any school, but is a significant life skill and virtue which make people's personalities richer. With applying of volunteering practices, the town twinning concept will become more accessible and more sustainable.  This proposal includes activities for capacity building of targeted citizens for developing good ideas in quality projects.

The preparation phase will start with dissemination of information about the project, its objectives and activities, through preparation, printing and distribution of promotional materials in the all municipalities. At the start of the project and during its implementation also, 8 radio and 2 TV broadcasts will be carried out including: Presentation of the project, its objectives, activities, main events, main beneficiaries, contracting authority etc. Preparation of questionnaires about volunteering will be done. Duration of this phase is 2 months. Responsible for this phase is the applicant association, but information will be disseminated in all municipalities.

The implementation phase includes preparation and realization of 1 training session and celebration of Day of Europe in Negotino; preparation and realization of 1 discussion forum and creation of Volunteering Platform in Popovo, the research activity- distribution and elaboration of questionnaires about volunteering, in all 4 municipalities. Duration of this phase is 6 months. 

The third phase - evaluation phase will be realized last 2 months of the project. In this phase will be evaluated the results from the activities, the project reports will be done, and the results of researching will be published. An evaluation meeting will be held in Gevgelija.

 

The project activities will be based on the following methods: interactive team work; work in mixed groups with concrete task; presentations; debate; concept of "learning by doing".

Whole project will be based on strengthening capacities of citizens for developing a sense of European identity, volunteering as a significant European value to general wellbeing, safeguarding of principles of democracy, respect of human rights tolerance, mutual understanding, gender balance, and intercultural dialogue, respect of creativity and freedom of expression.

The expected impacts on the target groups are:

 - Shared ideas, experiences and possibilities for identifying and realizing of good volunteering practices;

 - Improved the quality of already established twinning relationships;

 - Increased knowledge for EU programmes, especially Europe for Citizens;

 - Established relationships between Macedonian and Bulgarian participants;

 - Offered opportunities and created preconditions for further twinning relationships;

 - Created a Platform of Volunteering as a base for permanent cooperation amongst partners;

 - Strengthened the formal connection amongst partner organizations.

Concrete outputs:

-           3 Training sessions;

-           1 Informative session;

-           Celebration Event;

-           Created Volunteering Platform;

-           1 publication;

 -          CD - photos;

-           Facebook profile and/or blog.

Regarding sustainability, the project will result a Platform of Volunteering which will be important for permanent cooperation amongst all involved parties. Through the activities will be achieved capacity building of organizations and Municipalities representatives for making quality and sustainable further projects. The elaborated data base (researching results) will be a base for undertaking activities and initiatives in accordance with the real needs. The reinforced twinning relationships will contribute for wider development of the Municipalities and their promotion. The established partnerships amongst all partners will enable future cooperation which can result with other twinning relationships establishment. After the project it will be created a network of interested citizens for volunteering and hosting volunteers, in order to stimulate the sharing of new project ideas and volunteering practices for future interventions among them. This way they can actively participate and collaborate to the proposal of new ideas. The maintaining of the network will be enabled by the creation of the Facebook profile or blog.