Project name:
2019-2020: European Project, Ideas, Skills, Together in
Original Local Events (E.P.I.S.T.O.L.E.)
Project number:
2019-1-HR01-ESC11-060368
Project duration:
01.09.2019 – 31.07.2020
Coordinating/host organisation:
LDA Local Democracy Agency Verteneglio
Partner/sending organisations:
Open Door International e. V., Köln, Germany
Asociación Egeria Desarrollo Social, Malaga, Spain
Soc. Coop. Soc. “Il Piccolo Principe”, Casarsa della Delizia, Italy
Klubs “Māja” – Jaunatne vienotai Eiropai, Riga, Latvia
Volunteers:
Manuel Salas Ruiz
Riccardo Mantovani
Julia Oelker
Elza Bibere
The long-term volunteering project E.P.I.S.T.O.L.E. represents a structured programme for 11 months, which long-term aims to strengthen and enlarge the impact of the European values, principles, and policies among the youth in the small rural communities of Istrian region and increase the knowledge, awareness and participation in the EU youth programmes, as a way to reinforce the common sense of belonging to the European community. Through participation in the project activities, the four participants will enhance various aspects of their personal development: new knowledge, train skills and shape attitudes, acquire experience of exploring, working and living abroad in an international environment leading to growth and advancement of their capacity to pursue the chosen professional and personal path.
The aims of the project are focused on the direct results of the implementation of the project activities and the results following from the team and individual projects of the four young people, personally for them, as well as for the local community. Primary, we aim to engage youth in direct meetings, thematic debates, celebrations, organized by the agency with the support of our partners on the territory of the region, in order through personal contact with the young people to explain the programme opportunities as rules, but also through their personal stories and how the volunteers turn the possibilities into advantages for their personal or career plans, gaining experience they were missing and were unable to acquire, creating vision based on concrete stories for the potential benefits for their personal perspective. The project aims at developing of project writing skills in the volunteers by the creation of original youth exchange/s which the volunteer will be able to propose draft and apply, receiving the full support of the LDA team. The volunteers will create a special thematic blog, advertised and visible also through the LDA site, focused on the life abroad and the learning experience, cultural enrichment and the personal adaptation, collaboration of the young volunteers’ participation in various projects and impressions, their impact and importance for the future. The implementation of the activities will also have a direct positive impact on the recognisability of the LDA Brtonigla as a source of information related to the actual EU life, youth news, programmes and activities.
The design of the project shares and fully matches the European Solidarity Corp objectives. It will raise awareness of EU values, principles and programmes, planned activities will serve as tools to develop and excel various skills and shape attitudes in the young volunteers’ personal and professional capacity, providing an intercultural bridge by living and collaborating with different European cultures and nurture empathy, respect, partnership, understanding.