From the 12th to 19th December in Vilanova I la Geltrú (Barcelona, Spain), Fundació Catalunya Voluntària-FCV hosted the EuroMed training course ‘Volunteering for Peace’, organized with the support of the Erasmus+ program of the European Commission and the Spanish National Agency. The course was devoted to building the capacities of nongovernmental organizations to manage European voluntary service projects, thus helping young people living in countries from the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean and in Europe to participate in voluntary service projects in other countries in the region, focused on implementing peace initiatives.
The course brought together 21 representatives of 10 non-profit organizations, members of the informal network ‘Peace Bag for EuroMed Youth’ from 10 countries. Thr participants shared their experience, engaged in discussions and in activities which served to provide new perspectives about the topics of the course and to design new initiatives planned to be implemented in 2016.
The course allowed the group to understand the complex nature of the EVS program and how it can reinforce local and regional peace building initiatives led by member organizations, while promoting the culture of peace, non formal learning, intercultural exchange and solidarity among young people.
In addition to providing useful information and tools to manage EVS projects, the course helped to achieve a common understanding of the values of the network and to determine the tasks of the various working groups.
This training course, coordinated by the FCV, has been promoted in partnership with Peace Action, Training and Research Institute- PATRIR (Romania), UNOY Peacebuilders (the Netherlands), United Nations Youth Association (Bulgaria), Media Association for Peace (Lebanon), Development No Borders (Egypt), Identity Center for Human Development (Jordan), Baladna-Association for Arab Youth (Palestine), World Peace Initiative (United Kingdom) and System & Generation (Turkey).
More information: www.peacebag.org
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