The main purpose of the „Youth Activation - Long Term Ambition“ (YALTA) project was mainly to influence systematic work with youth with visual impairment in both involved countries – in Slovakia and Slovenia. Wehave developed and verified a model which enables activation of young people with visual impairment and provides practical examples on creating inclusive environment within the already existing youth groups. Despite various efforts in the area of inclusion people with visual impairment are still facing discrimination in various areas of life. This specific group has very few opportunities to participate on mainstream activities (social, cultural and leisure-time activities). Therefore they spend most of their free-time in a passive way without any motivation to influence social life. Similar situation concerning this group of youngsters is observed in both involved countries. There were three types of target groups identified within the project that are crucial for developing systematic activities for youth with visual impairment:1) youngsters with visual impairment (young leaders), 2) volunteers without disability (young volunteers) and 3) Professional staff of involved partner organizations. In order to achieve main project goals we realized several activities and outcomes. In the first phase we summarized know-how of all involved partners and created a toolkit for youth workers and for youth leaders. These toolkits formed a basis for the following project phases – for the training phase as well as for the testing and implementation phase within which the functionality of the proposed model for activization and inclusion of youngsters with visual impairmentwas verified. Moreover the project enabled the creation of organized groups of youth with visual impairment cooperating with youngsters without any disability in four pilot regions (Bratislava, Banská Bystrica, Nitra, Prešov) as well as realization of several regular activities for youth with visual impairment and for elementary and secondary school pupils. These activities were prepared by trained young leaders, volunteers and trained Professional staff. This project contributed to the direct activization of youth with visual impairment and to their organizedness and their involvement into leisure-time and various civic and social activities that has a big importance especially regarding self-advocacy and promoting rights.

NGOs deal with a wide range of challenges on their day-to-day management routine. Concerning those human resources, volunteers are largely underestimated and when they are appreciated, it is usual to suffer troubles as the current tools needed to coordinate them are different from the ones applied to normal paid staff on the third or private sector. According to this, non profit and volunteering organisations demand new accessible VET tools for their teams and a professionalization of the field that could create the suitable environments for the development of those working on it.Following this need, “Levol-app: learning app for the VET on volunteering management programmes” appeared to overcome the lack of new learning pathways orientated to cover the real profesional needs of non profit organisations and their teams. It was a 28-month strategic partnership at EU level funded by Erasmus+ and its Key Action 2 for the development of VET coordinated by Pista Mágica – Associação (Portugal) with the support of Neo Sapiens (Spain), Associazione di Promozione Sociale Futuro Digitale (Italy), Platforma dobrovolnickych centier a organizacii (PDCO) (Slovakia) and the Birmingham voluntary Service Council (BVSC) (United Kingdom). It joined together more than 300 participants from the five project countries related to non profit organisations who cooperated with Levol-app partners on the detection of the project target group needs, tested the outputs created and contributed with their feedback to improve the materials developed before their final publication when the project finished. The participation of such a wide range of participants allowed to work together and exchange good practices related to the training of those responsible of the creation and coordination of volunteer management programmes (at local or international level). As a result, partners created an online platform on five languages to support NGOs on the creation or improvement of programmes to better engage volunteers as active citizens and improve the competences and professional skills of the volunteer managers: https://www.levol-app.eu/outputs/The materials and training online developed deal with topics such as planning a high impact volunteer program, organizing volunteers, creating volunteer positions, recruiting the right volunteers, matching volunteers to work, preparing volunteers for success, supervising volunteers for maximum performance, measuring volunteer program effectiveness, recognition of volunteers, etc. All the participants taking part on the project were not only able to test and use this tool to create their own volunteering programmes, but had also the support of personal coaches on each partner country who helped them to implement the knowledge acquired along the project.During the implementation of Levol-app, partner organisations run together different activities in the five countries involved such as:- Four coordination meetings on the project countries to get to know the best practices and local projects related to volunteering management and training.- Local meetings and focus groups on different parts of each partner country to meet the target group of the project and establish the needs to be covered by the platform created.- A transnational training course for volunteer management coaches to capacitate them on the use of the project outputs, online platform and materials.- Online activities for learners (NGOs’ staff and volunteers) interested on creating or improving the volunteer programmes of their organisations.- Five multiplier events on each partner country to disseminate the project results and promote its outputs.-The design and publication of recognition tools to reward the training and volunteering programmes of those NGOs taking part in the project (ex. certificates, a seal, a special section on the project site for collaborators, etc.).All these activites have made possible to build a tailor-made learning pathway for NGOs and their staff about volunteering coordination that contributes to cover the lack of VET for professionals on this sector. The tool created to contain this training materials has been well recognized by all the participants involved on the project not only as a way to create volunteering management programmes, but also as a reference or checking device to supervise already existing processes to handle volunteers and upgrade them. As a consequence, Levol-app partners have success on developing a new innovative material covering the main needs of its potential target groups but also allowing them to adapt the knowledge provided to their own contexts and structures of their organisations. All the results of Levol-app are being openly shared by the project website (https://www.levol-app.eu/) that does not only contains information about it, but also contains all its outputs and provide a permanent access to the online training platform created.

This project aimed to increase the quality of volunteerism in general and in the youth filed in particular by taking volunteer management to the next quality level based on tailor-made occupational profile, comprehensive training curricula and competence validation procedure for experienced volunteer managers according to the new occupational profile, quality standards for volunteer management, and creation of support structures in the form of professional communities for volunteer managers. The project objectives have been: # to enhance the quality and relevance of the learning offer in the field of volunteer management in general and volunteer management in the youth field in particular through the development of tailored training curricula based on a competence based occupational profile, the development of quality standards in volunteer management, and the development of validation instruments for competences acquired in non-formal or informal learning; # to increase the use of European reference tools for recognition, validation and transparency of competences and qualifications in the field of volunteer management by stimulating the volunteer managers in 5 countries to use the available and appropriate Europass tools; # to improve the capacities of the 5 resource organizations involved in the project in the area of quality of services and targeted activities for specific groups (namely volunteer managers), project management and internationalization, enhancing the dynamic, committed and professional environment within the organizations. The project included activities that contributed to strengthening the cooperation between resource organizations from 5 European countries (Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, and Latvia) with a view to # exchange good practices in volunteer management, # develop, test and implement innovative practices in relation to volunteer management in general and volunteer management in the youth field in particular, and # facilitate recognition and validation of knowledge, skills and competences acquired through formal, non-formal and informal learning. The project resulted in professionalization and professional development of volunteer managers in general and youth volunteer managers in particular because of its activities of developing training curricula, delivering training, developing validation instruments and applying them to volunteer managers, exchanging experiences and practices between resource organizations in the countries involved. The project produced four main outputs:O1: Volunteer Manager Occupational Profile O2: Quality Standards for Volunteer ManagementO3: Training Curricula for Volunteer ManagersO4: Instrument for Validation of Competences as Volunteer Manager (according to the occupational profile) All the outputs are available in English and the 5 languages of the participating partners (Romanian, Croatian, Slovak, Hungarian and Latvian) on the webpages of each project partner and the Erasmus Plus Project results Platform. .

"More and more people and organisations are becoming aware of the educational value of volunteering, and of validation opportunities for the voluntary sector. However, ther use and impact is largely unknown. Furthermore the risk of reinventing the wheel by setting up new projects is evident, and on the other hand, there are ‘’missing links’’e.g. in connecting the validation methods with the European Guidelines or instruments like the European Qualification Framework for Validation or in forms of volunteering that are not recognised. The Improving Validation in the Voluntary Sector (ImproVal) project was set out to tackle this problem. The group of five European organisations put together their past and present expertise on skills recognition and validation in the voluntary sector. By bringing together existing information and collecting new data, ImproVal project created an online compendium, a synthesis, a study and policy recommendations for advancing the understanding on validating volunteers' skills.We engaged over 80 representatives from voluntary organisations, volunteers and validation experts in our study on experiences in using tools designed for validating volunteers' skills. Through the webinars and workshops we reached about 100 stakeholders live at local, national and European level, and webinar recordings and videos reached 270 views. Over the 26 months of ImproVal project, we- created a ""volunteering validation compendium"", an online collection of 45 validation tools in 22 languages from EU member states- created a synthesis of the validation tools (46 tools) by analysing their pedagogical principles and other essential dimensions- conducted a study among volunteers and organisations who have participated in validation processes about the impact of validation, combining quantitative data by questionnaires and qualitative data through group interviews- produced an article based on the study and translated the summary to five languages (DE, FI, FR, NL, SK)- produced recommendations for policy makers and organisations interested in validation on basis of the synthesis and study- composed an annex to the policy recommendations, which connects numbers of executed validation projects in different EU member states to national policies of validation and volunteering- engaged stakeholders in a dialogue on validation by using webinars and facilitated workshops, thus raising their awareness and interest in advancing validation. As a result:- Participating organisations have learned to adapt their validation policies and gained new methods as well as reached an overview about existing instruments to validate skills and competencies acquired in field of volunteering- There is an increased understanding of the value of competencies gained by volunteering and volunteering in general among participating organisations and various stakeholders, such as voluntary organisations, educational institutions and policy makers- Various organisations have been informed about the project outcomes, and in the future they will be able to use and adapt existing tools in their validation activities and avoid putting time and effort into creating something that already exists and to focus on more innovative projects- Policy developments can be detected at micro level at some educational institutions in them opening up more to validating informally learning outcomes, and beyond individual institutions in policy recommendations at local, regional and even national and European levels. In the long term, the project benefits a wide number of individual volunteers who will have better access to validation opportunities, thus increasing motivation for learning and employability, and also voluntary organisations through access to methods and tools, educational institutions through an understanding on learning by volunteering and validation which give them the ability to guide their learners more smoothly though formal education, and employers and policy makers by increasing their awareness of the educational value of volunteering and their ability to design policies that advance the use of validation."

The project builds on the need to foster an international dimension in order to, on one hand, motivate young people to engage and, on the other hand, enable youth workers to develop key competences, sense of initiative and civic participation through one of successful strategies wide spread in the world, service-learning. Service-learning strategy has been developed abroad within nonformal and also formal education since long and the project partners have gained experience in its development. The potential of the strategy in Central and Eastern European countries has still not been used enough, because of the missing structures, lack of competence and experience in development of the strategy.General objective of the project is to enhance the competencies and opportunities of youth to fully participate in its society (local, regional, country and EU level), both economically and socially. The specific objective of the project are to improve the quality and relevance of the education offer in the field of implementation of the service-learning strategy in youth work through development of a training curriculum and related documents and manuals adapted to the context of Central and Eastern European countries; to enhance capacities of organizations and youth workers in implementing service-learning concept in practice and possibilities of its implementation in cooperation with local as well as international youth volunteers; to increase the quality of youth work primary in area of youth volunteering; to increase awareness about volunteering as an educational experience and to create better connection between solidarity service and learning in volunteering experiences of young people. The project is based upon experience and expertise of partners from 5 EU and 1 non -EU country (associated partner) in the field of service-learning implementation, putting forward new international, innovative and so far unrealized outcomes. The project coordinator is Platform of Volunteer Centers and Organizations, which will cooperate closely with the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica (Slovakia). Project partners come from Romania, Croatia, Poland and Hungary There is more than 400 participants presumably involved in the project. The number include young people, youth workers, educator, target groups in the communities, conference participants. There will be at least 115 individuals lacking opportunities. The project activities consist of creating, testing and spreading innovative outcomes used during the realization of the project and upon its completion in order to develop and spread the service-learning strategy in the field of youth work and outside it, fostering quality of youth work and volunteering. Among main innovative outcomes of the project there are: 1) training for youth workers in service learning and a guide for trainers, 2) manual for implementation of the service learning strategy in the youth work, 3) manual for youth – how to implement service-learning projects and 4) Webinar - graphically facilitated introduction in Service Learning. The outcomes of this kind have not been produced so far but they are of key importance for service-learning development and implementation. The outputs will be published in English as well as in 5 national languages. All outcomes will be available online on the project website. There are 5 transnational working sessions planned within the project and training of trainers in service-learning, centered on the conception of intellectual outcomes and steering of the project. Steering activities include project management, monitoring, evaluation, dissemination, communication and follow-up. The key dissemination activity will be a 2-day international conference. All project outcomes are planned so as to be usable upon the project completion. Apart from partner institutions, youth workers and involved young people, the project will have impact on local communities. It will show in broadening cooperation between actors and decision-makers of various kind – a civic society, citizens and public bodies.