This project “AFS intercultural learning experience for life: volunteer work at a local project and integration into the local community” aimed to develop solidarity and promote tolerance among people with different cultural backgrounds. This was achieved by providing opportunities for intercultural dialogue, intercultural learning and integration in the local community. We did this by offering the volunteers the opportunity of working in a community service project. The volunteers were inserted into a multicultural environment in which they carry out several different tasks, always accompanied by staff members. This allowed them to learn and improve a multitude of skills, to nurture in them a sense of European citizenship and European values, and to provide them with a professional experience that ease their transition into the labor market. Plus, given the fact that they will contact regularly with people from different countries (by meeting other volunteers e.g.), it is also helpful for the volunteers as they are urged into learning and speaking foreign languages, thus promoting multilingualism, in accordance with the objectives of the Erasmus+ programme. The organizations benefited from the collaboration of the volunteers, with focus on the different working methods that each person brings to the workplace. This stimulated a learning process for both parties, in which one gain from the experience of the other and vice-versa. Also, through discussion and evaluation, the various actions, initiatives and processes were analyzed in order to optimize the overall quality of the project. Lastly, the local community benefited from interaction with foreign volunteers, which is key to promoting values such as tolerance, freedom, pluralism and intercultural and interreligious acceptance, among others. We projected to involve 22 youngsters over 2 years, but several mobilities were shortened, mainly due to the covid-pandemic. As a consequence, we were able to send 29 volunteers over 3 years. Each volunteer had an individual activity at one of the hosting projects. The local projects focussed on themes like education, media, agriculture, sustainability, animal care, health care, cultural heritage, intercultural education, child care and minorities. We had 2 participants that started their project in 2018 (of which 1 stayed until June 2019), 11 in 2019 (3 of which stayed until 2020) & 16 in 2020 (of which 4 stayed until 2021) in this project. By living in a host family, participants hosted in Belgium saw the differences in habits, personalities and opinions which made them think about their own habits, personality and opinions. The participants confronted their family with their own personalities, habits and culture, which maybe they did not really question before. In this way the benefits were on both sides: the family who they are living with, but also for the participants: there is - on both sides - an ever growing awareness of how a society has an impact on our daily life. With this knowledge competences to confront issues raised by persons coming from different starting situations was greatly improved. Because of the so-called 360° intercultural learning experience it was a life changing experience for the volunteer. The gain in understanding and awareness of different cultural, sociological, linguistic and economic situations made the volunteer more enthousiast about Europe and its values. It empowered him / her in terms of self-esteem and boosted his / her engagement towards a more open and democratic society. It is in the mission of AFS to build a more peaceful world and we strongly believe in the improvement of these competences by working as a volunteer and by living in a host family. Through the whole experience the Global Competence Certificate was guiding the participant on a personal level.The GCC is a combination of online learning and live training. By leveraging technology, we increase our reach to learners across the globe. The program brings the content of intercultural learning through a modular, blended, and experiential learning approach. It ensures that all participants receive a standard curriculum, which they can take online and at their own pace. This curriculum serves as the basis for further individual and group reflection and experimentation during live training components. Through forums in the online component, learners can connect with peers from around the world and begin reflecting on intercultural issues before they embark on their intercultural experience. The content of the online modules helps each participant reflect on his or her own cultural identity and supports participants as they learn about others, manage their emotions, and build meaningful relationships across differences.

Digital media are omnipresent in today’s society and offer many opportunities, but they also pose challenges, not only for the so-called diginatives but also for anyone who works and lives with them. The Apestaartjaren research (2006 - ...) already is a well-known research about how Flemish youngsters use digital media and is used by many Flemish youth workers and teachers to improve their teaching and working methods and their interactions with youngsters. We wanted to organise an international seminar, in which we wanted to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience between youth workers from Finland, Romania and the UK in order to empower youngsters and their careers in the digital age. All partner organisations were involved in the preparation of the seminar and actively participated in all activities. They also provided content and experts for the seminar’s workshops and activities. Originally Mira Media (NL) would also be involved in this project, but they quit the project in January 2016. The project consisted of one main activity, being a six day seminar in Leuven. This seminar started on Sunday evening May 8th 2016 and ended on Saturday afternoon May 14th 2016. The 23 participants from 4 different countries stayed at the Blauwput Youth Hostel in Leuven, where most of the workshops and sessions were held. There were several exchange activities during this seminar in which the partipants shared knowledge and good practices and mapped opportunities, challenges, needs and goals for youth workers regarding digital media and youngsters. During Expert Workshops, the participants learned more about how to set up digital projects, younsters and media literacy and how to make media with youngsters. Also we met and exchanged with local youth workers in Leuven on Monday evening. On Tuesday an excursion to Brussels was organised. On Thursday and Friday the participants attended the Apestaartjaren conference at the Provinciehuis also in Leuven. A special English spoken program was made available to the participants from UK, Finland and Romania. The working methods were very diverse: keynotes, exchange sessions, visits, workshops etc. We monitored and evaluated the learning goals of the participants individually and as a group throughout the seminar and used the Youth Pass as a certificate for their learnt competences. The goal of the seminar was to help and stimulate the participants to use their new insights and working methods in their interactions with youngsters, showing them new ways to use digital media and benefit from the opportunities they provide.After the seminar, we collected insights, testimonials, tips... on a weblog and kept in touch with the participants through a Facebook group. Mediaraven, Mouth That Roars and MediaMetka already set up plans to collaborate again in the near future.

More and more decision makers, municipalities, youth organizations, youth workers and other practitioners in Europe get involved in the topic of e-Participation. They experiment with new tools and services and gain increasing practical experience in the field. This is extremely valuable. But still, although progress is being made, the activities and pioneer projects taking place in Europe are yet rather fragmented and disconnected. Many experienced practitioners in the youth field don´t know about each other, software developers in different countries develop the same kind of tools over and over again, and many user organizations make the same experiences – but also repeat the same mistakes. In this context, the establishment of a regular European-wide exchange between youth workers, participation experts, software developers and other actors in the field is of great mutual benefit. With the #BePart Summit, we aimed to gradually establish such an exchange. Within a 3-day seminar 50 European youth workers from 18 participating organisations in 10 different countries obtained the possibility to share good practices and experiences on e-participation with other experts and practitioners, identifying the challenges and opportunities as well as needs for training and qualification. Participants came from Non-governmental organisations/associations/social enterprises (7), Local Public bodies (2), National Youth Councils (2), Small and medium sized enterprise (2), National Public body (1), Civil Society Organisation (1), European NGO (1), Other(2).The participants have discussed and come to the conclusion that e-participation is a tool for interactive decision making online. Through it a wider range of people, mainly the younger people, can be reached and engaged in giving their opinion on topics that influence their lives. On the subject of what need is it a response they concluded that through its usage the state or the European Union can manage and use its resources and finances more efficiently, further drawing attention to the fact that the offline processes, currently managed by the EU, are more costly. They think that adapting such new ideas and methods of connecting with one another such as the e-participation is an innovative and evolutionary step in itself. The e-participation can be used as a tool to solve the problem with the lack of communication, especially in the younger community within EU, as it serves as a means to reaching each other easily online even to people living in more remote areas. It gives the opportunity to address issues, which young people face, not only on a local but on a global level as well. It is the ideal method for turning youth’s thoughts and opinions into actual involvement.

We hosted 12 participants in 2017 & 1 in 2018. 1 of them stayed during 12 months, the others stayed for a duration of approx. 6 months. We were able to host more participants than in the initial application, thanks to the reallocation of a part of the budget from Activity 2 to Activity 1. All of them lived in a Dutch speaking host family. They volunteered in very different kind of organisations working on themes such as media & communication; nature & sustainability; employability; education; early childhood; culture; people with disabilities; intercultural learning. The tasks achieved by the participants varied from one project to another. A detailed overview of the tasks that were carried out by project can be found in attachment, along with a description of each project, the profile & benefits for the volunteer & the hosting organisation. Our projects are open to all kind of participants regardless of ethnic background, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, level of education, religion or any other personal aspect; motivation & interest are the key elements.By participating in the project “AFS: Intercultural learning experience for life: volunteer work at a local project and integration into the local community” the young volunteers have gained intercultural competences by working in a local project, living in a Belgian host family and at the same time meeting peers from all over the world during formal and informal meetings. Besides, having gone through the Global Competence Certificate they deepened their knowledge in intercultural learning, by walking through online sessions and videos, reflecting upon it by themselves and with peers during webinars & live trainings, facilitated by Qualified Facilitators. The GCC is a combination of online learning & live training. The program brings the content of intercultural learning through a modular, blended, and experiential learning approach. It ensures that all participants receive a standard curriculum, which they can take online & at their own pace. This curriculum serves as the basis for further individual & group reflection and experimentation during live training components. Through forums in the online component, learners can connect with peers from around the world & begin reflecting on intercultural issues before they embark on their intercultural experience. The content of the online modules helps each participant reflect on his or her own cultural identity & supports participants as they learn about others, manage their emotions & build meaningful relationships across differences.Designed to support learners participating in an international experience, our Global Competence Certificate builds their global competence; the knowledge, skills, and understanding we believe are needed to create a more just and peaceful world. The content is designed to meet key educational goals that help learners develop intercultural competence and deal with cultural adjustment. These goals are organized into four core areas: self-awareness, awareness about others, emotional intelligence and bridges across difference. Having intentional intercultural education surrounding one's experience abroad has been proved to have a very big impact on people's learning for intercultural competences. More information about the Global Competence Certificate (GCC) can be found on: sentionetwork.org/certificate (ENG) & www.afsvlaanderen.be/global-competence-certificate (NL).As such the volunteers developped unique competences in a non formal learning environment. Thanks to this 360° intercultural learning experience participants developed & strenghtened their intercultural competences & became active citizens that share and transmit the concepts of solidarity and tolerance among people with different cultural backgrounds.The experience doesn't only have an impact on the volunteer himself, but also on the people surrounding him. Hosting a foreign volunteer has a long-lasting impact on colleagues and host family members. The youngster brought a new culture into their organisation or family & as such they learned about another culture. At the same time the volunteers brings new perspectives and have a fresh look on the way organisations are working, which can lead to improvements and strengthening of the organisation. Each volunteer has unique things to offer regardless their experience or background, each in his own unique way.By interacting with peers the participants have impact on each other too, sharing experiences and spending time together in an intercultural environment.We can definitely say that an exchange of one person has lifelong impact on a very broad range of people.Besides all this, volunteers developed all kind of skills such as: being more independent, decision-making, language skills, developing personal projects & ideas, planning, self-confidence, adaptability & flexibility, tolerance, critical thinking, global citizenship, expressing own opinions,...

We had 6 participants in 2018 (of which 1 stayed until August 2019) & 4 in 2019 in this project. 2 of them stayed during 5 months, 6 during 6 months, 1 during 8 months & 1 during 12 months. All of them lived in a Dutch speaking host family. Although we applied for 8 mobilities of 6 months, 1 mobilities of 10 months & 1 of 12 months, 3 of the mobilities were shorter than intended. This was due to 1 late arrival & 2 early terminations due to personal reasons.They volunteered in different kind of projects evolving around themes such as media & communication; biological agriculture; people with fewer opportunities and vulnerable backgrounds; animal care; intercultural learning; education; human rights. The tasks achieved by the participants varied from one project to another. A detailed overview of the tasks that were carried out by project can be found in attachment, along with a description of each project, the profile & benefits for the volunteer & the hosting organisation. Our projects are open to all kind of participants regardless of ethnic background, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, level of education, religion or any other personal aspect; motivation & interest are the key elements.By participating in the project “AFS: Intercultural learning experience for life: volunteer work at a local project & integration into the local community” the young volunteers have gained intercultural competences by working in a local project, living in a Belgian host family & at the same time meeting peers from all over the world during formal & informal meetings. Besides, having gone through the Global Competence Certificate they deepened their knowledge in intercultural learning, by walking through online sessions & videos, reflecting upon it by themselves & with peers during webinars & live trainings, facilitated by Qualified Facilitators. The GCC is a combination of online learning & live training. The program brings the content of ICL through a modular, blended & experiential learning approach. It ensures that all participants receive a standard curriculum, which they can take online & at their own pace. This curriculum serves as the basis for further individual & group reflection & experimentation during live training components. Through forums in the online component, learners can connect with peers from around the world & begin reflecting on intercultural issues before they embark on their intercultural experience. The content of the online modules helps each participant reflect on his or her own cultural identity & supports participants as they learn about others, manage their emotions & build meaningful relationships across differences.Designed to support learners participating in an international experience, our Global Competence Certificate builds their global competence; the knowledge, skills & understanding we believe are needed to create a more just & peaceful world. The content is designed to meet key educational goals that help learners develop intercultural competence & deal with cultural adjustment. These goals are organized into 4 core areas: self-awareness, awareness about others, emotional intelligence & bridges across difference. Having intentional intercultural education surrounding one's experience abroad has been proved to have a very big impact on people's learning for intercultural competences. More information can be found on: sentionetwork.org/certificate (ENG) & www.afsvlaanderen.be/global-competence-certificate (NL).As such the volunteers developped unique competences in a non formal learning environment. Thanks to this 360° intercultural learning experience participants developed & strengthened their intercultural competences & became active citizens that share & transmit the concepts of solidarity & tolerance among people with different cultural backgrounds.The experience doesn't only have an impact on the volunteer himself, but also on the people surrounding him. Hosting a foreign volunteer has a long-lasting impact on colleagues & host family members. The youngster brought a new culture into their organisation or family & as such they learned about another culture. At the same time the volunteers bring new perspectives & have a fresh look on the way organisations are working, which leads to improvements & strengthening of the organisation. Each volunteer has unique things to offer regardless their experience or background, each in his own unique way. By interacting with peers the participants have impact on each other too, sharing experiences & spending time together in an intercultural environment.We can definitely say that an exchange of one person has lifelong impact on a very broad range of people. Besides all this, volunteers developed all kind of skills such as: being more independent, decision-making, language skills, developing personal projects & ideas, planning, self-confidence, adaptability & flexibility, tolerance, critical thinking, global citizenship, expressing own opinions,..