EVS project ‘Volunteering for indigenous communities’ was a joint effort of two organisations: Institute for Easter Initiatives (IWI) and the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North of Khabarovsk Region (AIP). AIP was concerned by the social passivity of Indigenous young people in the region. According to the organisation, indigenous communities should be the local tomorrow's leaders who can lead the village and neighbourhood associations and work in the state and municipal authorities. In the same time, main goals of IWI were related to cooperation between East and West. Organisation has also extensive experience in conducting activities for ethnic and national minorities. That is why the topic of activisation of indigenous communities attracted both partners and was a starting point for common voluntary project. Both partners believed that EVS project could support more active participation of local community. Therefore their motivation was to find out and use the best practices in the youth work which is focused in increasing the social activity among the youngsters. The main aim of the project was social inclusion of youth through international dialogue and mutual work between youngsters from Poland and Russia. The project objectives:1. To enable a young and motivated volunteers to activate youth in Eastern Russia;2. To introduce EVS volunteer to the local environment, culture and people, break mutual stereotypes and barriers;3. To establish a good mutual understanding and cooperation between Polish volunteer and Indigenous youth. 4. To receive feedback which will be used to improve mutual work of both sides and to outline and analise the quality of their completed projects.5. To engage and include indigenous youth in activities carried together with the volunteer;6. To foster and improve active participation of local indigenous youth into public life of their region.7. To enable inclusion of indigenous youth into decision-making process in their region.8. To share and use the experience and the best practices for prospective EVS projects among concerned institutions and persons.The project included one mobility of a volunteer from Poland in Khabarovsk. Her tasks were devoted to bigger activisation and encouraging of participation in the life of local community. Volunteer had the possibility to adjust her activities to the needs and interests of her groups. According to her interests she was able to cooperate with the Universities, engage students and the staff and work for the promotion of Polish culture and mutual cooperation. The project aimed to contribute to increased participation of local indigenous youth in everyday issues of their region and community. In a long run it was supposed to create a bridge between Polish and Russian cultures, foster mutual cooperation, help combat stereotypes and transfer important cultural values and backgrounds.

"Mission Locale de l'Agglomération Rouennaise Received Ms RAAB in January 2016 to accompany her in her search for the EVS project in Russia. Extremely determined to perform an EVS in this country (due to her own personal culture - Russian language training and attraction for Slavic culture - and the fact that she was doing a civic service in Bordeaux), we were able to highlight her motivation From various Russian structures accredited and registered in the EVS database.By virtue of his experience (former intern in charge of Franco-Russian cooperation in the Ministry of Federal Affairs and External Relations in Yakutsk), due to his already identified linguistic skills (correct Russian) and above all his motivation to join a project Based on communication, intercultural learning and working on the keys to motivation to go abroad for young people living in a minority unknown to her, the candidacy of Miss RAAB was retained at the end of January 2016 on The project ""Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North of the Khabarovsk region""Together with the partner, we started to draft the application for the EVS project for a deposit in the first round of 2016. Several Skype interviews with the partner made it possible to build together the grant application, exchanges of mail made it possible to stabilize these exchanges in writing. These exchanges made it possible to:- Create a link with the host organization; Mr. CYMZYTHOV presenting himself as ""mission manager"" of the host organization. He seems to be experienced in the reception and in the assembly of grant files- To assemble the grant file: send the PIC code of the host organization (valid PIC code), complete the file by the partner and enter the information on the ad hoc website. Filing of the file on line 29/01/16 (attaching the required documents: schedule of activities, the mandate signed by the partner, the partnership agreement - activity contract)It was a few months after we began to doubt the professional approach of the partner, who had indicated to us to be experienced in the building of EVS applications; an experience which proved to be slight at the time of the visa application and to develop together a strategy for the payment of the grant (hesitation between transfer of the grant on an electronic account, the account of the volunteer, or to M.CYMZYTHOV's personal bank account)Once the file was accepted by the French Agency ERASMUS + in May 2016, we refined the contract of activities which made it possible to stop:• Ms RAAB's duties on site, including:-Develop the EVS concept in Siberia and the Far East (promotion of the program through conferences and trainings for NGOs wishing to join this program)-Coordination of the international mobility of Russian youth-Acquisition of knowledge about the culture of Aboriginal peoples in the far north (travel to Aboriginal villages, participation in cultural events, writing articles)-Promotion of the French language in the region of Khabarovsk (travel and conferences given to universities of Khabarovsk and educational centers)• Financial allocation• The distribution of the roles of the partner structures (purchase of the ticket, insurance for the sending structure, visa, accommodation, local transport, YouthPass, concrete organization of the volunteer's tasks on site for the host organization)The results were to cover a number of EVS sendings of young people, attending the association hosting Miss RAAB. They should also cover a number of informed local associations on the EVS system. No action to evaluate these results or impacts was carried out by the host organization during EVS.The Russian partner (Mr CYMZITHOV) was totally unable to manage this EVS hosting : the accommodation was never stabilized (either before the arrival of Ms RAAB or during her EVS) - accommodation in the university which was costly, then another costly costly, and lastly, housing for the inhabitant (solution rejected by the partner at the beginning). The initially proposed activities were never integrated by the hosting organization, which was not informed of the arrival of foreign volunteers (another volunteer joined Miss RAAB in November) and the visa obtained after a long period of vagueness, was a source of problem afterwards."

We are having an impact on environment in many ways depending on what we do, what means of transport we use, how much trash we produce, how much water we consume and how much food we waste… All of these aspects are something on what we basically do not focus and do not pay attention in our daily life, but the fact is that everyone leaves an ecological footprint and thus influences the nature. There are a lot of ways how to reduce this ecological footprint, we just need to realize it and behave accordingly. First step in this process is to start with ourselves, and next step would be to spread the environment friendly ideas to others. Sustainable living, waste management, recycling or upcycling are terms we should be familiar with. It is a known fact that during recycling of plastic waste, about 88% less energy is required compared to the production of new plastic, so valuable resources are saved by recycling. However, it is recycled only about one third of the material what is suitable for recycling. By implementing our project we wanted to contribute to the minimizing of differences between EU and its neighbouring countries by exchanging good practices and implementing them in other countries. Therefore, the aim of our project was encouraging young people to get more involved in the protection of environment of their community.In order to achieve our aim, we set the following objectives: - to exchange information/knowledge about ways to protect the environment; - to raise awareness among young people about the importance of sustainable living; - to create an informative campaign that each participant country will develop and implement in their community; - to foster sense of initiative of youngsters; - to promote Erasmus+ Programme. Youth exchange “Environment friendly” took place in 24 October - 01 November 2018 in Liepāja, Latvia. The group of participants taking part in the activity were young people with some experience in environment protection activities or at least with interest in this topic and willingness to begin with such activities. Participants from Latvia, Poland, Czech Republic, Turkey, Russian Federation, Italy, Greece and Ukraine were participating in tis activity. We used methods of non-formal education such as workshops, brainstorming, facilitated discussions, team building activities, presentations, plays, visits and excursions during the activity. Participants shared their experience and ideas within the group and in mixed teams they worked on campaign preparation. We introduced the staff, rules, name games, expectations, we continued with ice breaking and team building activities to group workshops with the aim to create the campaigns which were later applied in the participating countries. First it was shared in Latvian community, in particular during the event in high school in Liepāja where Erasmus+ and our campaign was presented to youngsters. We wanted to be close to the local community so our other activity was cleaning of surrondings together with children from local kindergarten. Our participants had an opportunity to speak with municipality representative, to see how waste management is being implemented.Our participants were determined to acquire knowledge in the project and to share it with others. 9 sessions of 90 minutes of our timetable were dedicated to brainstorming about campaigns - to create, to evaluate, to edit content and finally to present it. Result of all workshops was creative and innovative material and participants implemented these campaigns in their countries. The main impact for participating organisations was getting new ideas andnew approaches they can use for environmental activities. Individually participants gained complex of knowledge, soft skills and attitudes that can significantly improve their future career perspectives. Thanks to our dissemination activities more youngsters became more aware about non-formal education and Erasmus+ Programme. In the end of the project we expected higher awareness about importance of sustainable mindset, and more youngsters who would be motivated to change their behaviour at least a bit. Finally, in the long term perspective, this project can help young people to realize the importance of sustainable living for reducing amount of trash, improving quality of air or water etc. thus contributing to more sustainable environment.

<< Objectives >>Within the last years the community of educational practitioners and therefore also implemented projects in the field of non-formal education & international youth work was growing enormously. This goes along side the observation of many individual “trainers” starting up their educational practice as a (professional) life path and as a source of income. Nevertheless we are convinced that projects - and therefor us as the ones implementing them with young people and our cooperation partners - often lack reflection, knowledge, awareness & consciousness about a simple but crucial question, namely how to create and shape learning in order to define & achieve impact (individual, organisational and systemic) in cooperation with the target group(s). Or - as a thesis - in order to be able to achieve (and to measure) impact we have to really understand learning.Therefore the overall project foresees a series of educational events to discuss, share, build on & focus on key topics that interest the members of this consortium (organisations) but also support active individuals in developing further their profiles as individual educators. We would like this group to become more valuable for each of us and we believe there is probably no easier way to connect people than to have them meet online & offline and work together for a common purpose. We will develop for & with the group of partners a tailor-made series of European seminars & trainings which aim to provide a concrete profile for the group but also can serve as a reference of quality as educational practitioner. The seminars & trainings will foster the profile of people & organisations and will build on your experiences and needs as educational practitioners but also develops a concrete schedule for providing an overarching horizon of developing competences in the field of (European youth) education.Finally we would like to make available academic and other knowledge that is sometimes not available to certain groups of our society because the formal system excludes certain groups. This project is an attempt in offering training to a target that would otherwise not be able to acquire this type of experience. And secondly we believe that this project, as it is operating under non-formal settings, allows for a much closer learner centered approach and thus allows for a more sustainable and lasting impact. << Activities >>This project will implement 4 residential meetings for 30 participants from all over the European Union and neighbouring partner countries including 3 transitional phases in which further facilitated research is being conducted. This project will involve 30 multipliers, youth leaders, NGO activists, educators, young entrepreneurs, social workers who would like to increase their skill in offering qualitative learning spaces for young people and being able to measure the impact professionally. This project will additionally reach 300 individuals on local level reached through local activities in T3. All activities will operate in the frame of non-formal education and include learner participation and reflection in all relevant stages of the project. << Impact >>This project intends to significantly increase the quality of learning spaces being offered by non-formal educational actors. This will increase the quality and impact of the partners of this project to reach their target group with their respective mission. Non-formal educational activities will become more professional and measurable. We would like to increase significantly understanding of impact measurement and the implementation of measuring impact in general. Local communities will see a more professional NGO activism that can truly support and inspire young people. We also expect the participating organizations to deepen their collaboration in order to implement bigger projects.

TC Scenario Europe 2050 was a training course for 36 multipliers, entrepreneurs, social activists, educators, practitioners and youth leaders from over 15 regions, hosted in December in Tulln/Austria for six days. The objective was to enable NGOs and their staff to use scenario building as a tool to analyse and assess any current development in their community, to analyse and create possible scenarios and to finaly sharpen the tools to prepare for any such scenario. This project also builds bridges between societies currently at war with each other, which we believe is a fundamental value of this programme. The project was based on non-formal educational principles.