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Résumé

The M.I.E.L. (Managing and Implementing Euro – Latin American exchanges) project aims at developing the managerial and organisational knowledge, skills and attitudes of staff and board members of European and Latin American voluntary service organisations. It focuses on training as a non-formal education tool capable of building the capacities of young workers to share important tasks and responsibilities in the construction of Euro-Latin American exchanges and the implementation of concrete projects at the national and international levels.
The project will involve more than 60 staff and active members from the Secretariats of 2 international networks and 27 national organisations and branches of international networks in 20 countries (12 in Europe and 8 in Latin America).
The project will start with a Senior Staff Training and Networking meeting, which will take place in Mexico early February 2009. In this phase, the current leaders of 28 voluntary service organisations will be invited to learn from each other in a peer-education process. On one side, they will be invited to share their strengths, running specific sessions on the different fields of expertise they have acquired to be able to manage and implement voluntary service projects in their regions. Understanding the different perspectives and working methods brought by and resulting in diverse cultural and social contexts, the Senior Staff conveyed for the first Phase of the project will then be able to identify weaknesses and gaps in their own organisational structure and the correspondent space for improvement and growth, targeting bilateral partnerships with those organisations in the other continent that have shown during the training the potential to answer such needs.
On the basis of the reciprocal strengths and weaknesses identified by the Senior Staff during the first Phase, between March and September 2009 the organisations will then be invited to send and host young Junior Staff and Youth Workers from the other region for a 15-days Job-shadowing, with the double objective of running hands-on trainings for young staff and active members and acquire specific knowledge and skills in the fields that will constitute the space for future development of the organisations, strengthening existing partnerships and creating new ones.

A Final Evaluation and Conference will take place in Spain in October 2009, bringing together a mixed representation of Senior and Junior Staff and Youth Workers – with a clear preference being given at this stage to the younger participants - to assess the process and plan together future activities. The evaluation will include an important work on the different methods and tools used during the first two phases, leading to the finalisation of a Training Manual to be distributed to all organisations wishing to start and improve cooperation in the field of Euro-Latin American voluntary service projects and exchanges. The last day of the meeting will see the organisation of a Conference open for up to 100 local youngsters and will represent the first step of dissemination of the results, with similar activities to be carried out by the participating organisations in their own countries – in cooperation with the local and national authorities – after the end of the project.

Niveau d’intervention géographique

• International

Thématique

• Favoriser le dialogue au service du développement durable
• Renforcer l'éducation de qualité et le développement de compétences interculturelles

Pays bénéficiaire (s) / Groupes cibles

• Staff and board members of voluntary service organisations.

Principaux partenaires

European Commission / Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency

Nom de l’organisation / Entité responsable principale

Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service (CCIVS)