Seminar “Volunteering for change”

Team Sfera Macedonia participated in the Seminar “Volunteering for Change” from November 3 to 10 in Vilanova i la Geltru, Catalonia, Spain, organized by Fundació Catalunya Voluntària. The seminar was attended by 22 youth workers and volunteers from a total of 13 non-profit organizations from Hungary, Romania, Greece, Latvia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Catalonia, Turkey, Italy, Portugal, Estonia and Poland.

The aim of the seminar was to gather youth workers from the participating countries to reflect about the potential of volunteering programs and projects as a driving force for change in our communities and to understand how necessary is to change to achieve a more sustainable impact in terms of personal, professional and organizational development.

We had the opportunity to share good practices, techniques and work methodologies for volunteers management and how organizations can offer support to young people in their local communities focused on learning and encouraging active participation. All the activities of the seminar were organized using different non-formal working methods, work in small groups, presentations, games, workshops, exercises, simulations and challenges of various kinds.

Sfera Macedonia participated in this seminar with one facilitator and one participant. Through this, we strengthened the cooperation with the hosting organization Fundació Catalunya Voluntària and we already started planning our next workshops. Following we are sharing the experience of our participant in the seminar.

Bojan’s experience:

This seminar was one of the most significant for me because I learned new methods and techniques. The venue was great, especially the meeting room on the rooftop with a view of the Mediterranean sea and wonderful sunsets. The activities/ workshops that were prepared from the facilitators were new for me and the sharing sessions and methods for managing the volunteers and how to encourage them to be more active citizens that were presented, gave me an insight how I can improve while working in the youth field. The group was really experienced and I was feeling lucky that I have the opportunity to be there. We created great outcomes : 3 videos, 1 board game and 1 online campaign, explaining how the volunteering can change us and our society. We created a strong network for future projects and promised that we will see each other in near future, working together and creating projects like this.