The development of competences is one of the main reasons why people become volunteers. This is the conclusion of various studies from the last few years within the European Union, including: “Volunteering in the European Union” (European Commission, 2010) and “Así somos: el perfil del voluntariado social en España” (Translation: “This is who we are: the profile of social volunteering in Spain”) (Plataforma del Voluntariado de España, 2013).In this context, it is essential that we, as voluntary organisations, can offer to those volunteering a way to validate the competences they develop as volunteers. Unfortunately, the wide majority of professionals working in the European voluntary sector lack the training necessary to implement processes of validation of competences within their organisations. The partners of this project know first-hand this problem as we have years of experience working in the development of tools for the validation of competences. The main obstacle we have constantly faced is the lack of training in this field of the professionals working for voluntary organisations.Therefore, to provide a solution to this common European need, we have prepared the e-VOC project with the objective to improve, for the professionals of the European voluntary sector, the offer, accessibility and quality of continuous training (C-VET) on the validation of competences. The specific objectives of the project are:- To develop the first open online training course, offering 120 hours of training to the professionals of the European voluntary sector on the validation of competences, accessible via computers, tablets and smartphones.- To test the online training course with 20 professionals from the European voluntary sector to evaluate whether the course responds to the identified training needs and to allow for the necessary improvements to be implemented.- To translate and publish the online training course in three languages (Spanish, English and Italian) as OER (Open Educational Resources).- To teach to 160 trainers of regional and national platforms of voluntary organisations, from 4 countries, on the potential and on the use of the online training course so that they can, in turn, promote it among the professionals of the voluntary organisations they represent.- To have, at least, 1.500 professionals from the European voluntary sector (0.05% of the total target group) starting the online training course before the end of the project.In order to facilitate the measurement of the impact of the project on its target group, we have established the objective that 1.500 professionals will start the online training course before the end of the project. This does not mean that the total impact of the project at European level will be limited to those 1.500 professionals. We estimate that around 3.000.000 professionals could potentially benefit from this online training course. Therefore, after the end of the project, the main results that we, as partners, hope to get is a continuous increase over time of the number of professionals from the European voluntary sector who complete the online training course.Also, as the online training course will be published as OER under the Creative Commons license (Attribution - Share Alike (BY-SA)), we hope that after the end of the project, a large number of people and organisations from different sectors, will access, modify and exploit the results of the project, as part of other projects or actions.In addition to the partners’ employees and the 20 professionals from the European voluntary sectors with whom the online training course will be tested, trainers of platforms of voluntary organisations, representatives of other educational sectors, and policy-makers from the VET sector will participate in the project. In total, we plan to include 245 direct participants in the project.

According to the European Guidelines for the Validation of Non Formal and Informal Learning (CEDEFOP), the process of validating non formal and informal learning is divided in four phases: IDENTIFICATION, DOCUMENTATION, ASSESSMENT AND CERTIFICATION.According to the Council recommendation from 2012 on the validation of non-formal and informal learning, «[...] youth organisations and civil society organisations should promote and facilitate the identification and documentation of learning gained through volunteering, using relevant Union transparency tools such as those developed under the Europass framework and Youthpass» (Council of the European Union, 2012, p. 4, 4a).In most cases, the work of voluntary organisations ends with the documentation and the work of providers of formal education starts with the assessment. Volunteers often face alone the transition between the documentation and assessment phases. In other words, they receive no help between the moment they obtain documentary evidence of the learning gained through volunteering, until they secure an assessment of such learning from a formal education provider as part of an official qualification. There is a lack of information, training, guidance and tools to help volunteers with this transition. This is currently one of the main obstacles for the validation of the learning gained through volunteering in the EU.In this context, a transnational and cross-sectoral partnership made up of five organisations joined forces to develop the first open and multilingual online platform of information, training, guidance and support for volunteers during the transition between the documentation and assessment phases of the process of validation of the learning gained through volunteering.The platform consists of the following elements:- Homepage, with tools and instructions for the identification, documentation, conversion of the learning gained through volunteering into formal education standards, and evaluation as part of an official qualification.- Online course on the four phases of the process for the validation of the learning gained through volunteering and on the current systems for it in the EU.- Guidance, through an online forum and social media, where volunteers, voluntary organisations and providers of formal education can advise and guide other people who are facing alone the challenge of validating the learning gained through volunteering.- Good practices and success stories for volunteers to get inspired. Once the first development of the online platform was completed, it was tested by 72 volunteers from four countries. Based on the testers’ feedback, the project partners implemented additional improvements before the final publication of the ‘eVA-VOL’ online platform in September 2020.The online platform is accessible from computers, tablets and smartphones in four EU languages ​​(English , Spanish, Italian and Portuguese) at www.evavol.eu.According to the study “Volunteering in the European Union” (European Commission, 2010), there are around 92 to 94 million adults involved in volunteering in the EU (22-23% of the EU population). Therefore, facilitating the validation of the learning gained through volunteering could have a huge impact in the number of adults in the EU who decide to re-engage in formal education or continue towards higher qualifications. Thus contributing to the objectives of the European policies “Education & Training 2020” and the “renewed European agenda for adult learning”. In particular, regarding the objectives: at least 15% of adults should participate in lifelong learning, and at least 40% of people aged 30-34 should have completed some form of higher education.The ‘eVA-VOL’ project is a cross-sectoral and cross-border partnership led by the Spanish Volunteering Platform in collaboration with: Lazio Volunteer Support Centre (Italy), Portuguese Confederation of Volunteering (Portugal), Meath Partnership (Ireland), and Cork Institute of Technology (Ireland).

<< Objectives >>By improving the digital competences of older adults we intend to create the basis for an increased social inclusion of thesecitizens, in the country of the partners. Considering the limited number of people impacted (80/country), theproject aims to embody a sort of macro laboratory that will operate in 4 EU countries. The digital teacher will be trained students between 20 -25 YO, getting micro-credentials at the end of the training to adults.<< Implementation >>1.need analysis 2.Methodology for transferring the knowledge to the trainers and to the older adults3. Digital skills manual and toolkit4. MICROCREDENTIALS recognition for students and exploitability of the results of the projects5. Evaluation method and tools,<< Results >>Better and wider use of digital tools for older people in various domains such as health care, mobility, leisure, e-banking andaccess to digital services from public bodies;Formative possibility for university students who get the chance to teach basic digital skills to other generation and get theirwork recognized by university;Supporting social care professionals, older people’s caregivers providing them with a methodology and instruments to teachdigital skills to older adults;Tapping in

"<< Objectives >>The objective is to RESPOND TO A EUROPEAN NEED identified in 2011 in the ""Policy Agenda for Volunteering in Europe"", confirmed in 2016 by CEDEFOP and in 2019 by the European Association for Adult Education, which is THE NEED TO standardise the results of the tools for the validation of non-formal and informal learning and to adopt clear and transparent quality standards so that the results of the validation process are trusted by external parties and stakeholders.<< Implementation >>We will define the ""European Quality Standards in the Validation of the Learning acquired through Volunteering"" based on the results of the Public Consultation that we will organise across the EU.We will produce and disseminate across the EU a Manual in 6 languages to make it easier for the target groups to adopt these standards.We will organise a transnational testing to validate the Manual with the target groups and to identify which elements need improvement, and we will improve it.<< Results >>The main result of the project will be the Manual ""European Quality Standards in the Validation of the Learning acquired through Volunteering"" in 6 languages with detailed instructions and support tools so that any interested organisation can adopt these quality standards."

The importance of youth volunteering for social inclusion and active citizenship is evidenced in the EU (Volunteering in the European Union, GHK 2010). Furthermore, by participating in voluntary activities, young people acquire new knowledge, skills and competences, that support their personal development and employability. Thus conclude studies such as ‘Voluntary Action in 2018’ (PVE) and ‘Intergenerational volunteering and solidarity’ (Eurobarometer 2011), among others.The EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027 encourages Member States to promote the participation of young people in voluntary activities and highlights the importance of promoting good practices. Most European, national and regional programmes to support youth volunteering include, as an objective, the promotion of good practices but they do not define what is a ‘good practice’ or establish objective criteria for their identification. This is the conclusion from the study carried out by the partners of this project, after reviewing youth volunteering support programmes in 15 countries.Youth volunteering remains one of the few sectors without European Quality Standards. The definition of such Standards would facilitate the identification, promotion and development of good practices in all relevant areas of young volunteering and would therefore significantly contribute to the objectives of the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027.In this context, in order to respond to this European need, this project aims to define and disseminate across the EU the first European Quality Standards in Youth Volunteering.The first project activity will be to carry out a consultation in all EU countries in order to identify the most commonly used quality standards in the youth volunteering sector in each country. Based on the consultation results, the first version of the European Quality Standards in Youth Volunteering will be defined. Subsequently, in order to assess how the recently defined European Quality Standards in Youth Volunteering are understood and accepted within the European youth voluntary sector, the project partners will carry out a transnational testing. In order to motivate the participation of a large number of voluntary organisations across the EU, the testing will be organised as an award or contest: European Youth Volunteering Award. The jury will apply, for the first time, the European Quality Standards in Youth Volunteering to assess the submitted projects and select the winner. Once finished the transnational testing, and based on the feedback from the testers, the project partners will define the necessary improvements to be implemented on the European Quality Standards in Youth Volunteering.The definition and dissemination across the EU of the first European Quality Standards in Youth Volunteering will have a huge impact because:- it will contribute to improving the quality of the youth volunteering activities and therefore, the participation of young people in voluntary activities, promoting the EU civic life and youth initiative;- it will improve the capacities of people working in the youth field to develop quality activities;- it will quantitative and qualitative increase the offer of innovative resources for youth workers in the EU;- it will facilitate the selection, promotion and development of good practices in all relevant areas of youth volunteering;- it will contribute to the objectives of the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027, particularly to the objective of promoting the participation of young people in voluntary activities and promoting good practices.This project will be developed and implemented by a transnational and transectorial partnership composed by voluntary organisation and quality experts from seven countries of the EU.