Our goal is to empower youth structures to be able to run European Voluntary Service projects as a tool for
facilitating and promoting a broad-based and wide-ranging people-centred partnership and for
and to promote holistic approaches to development processes through hosting and sending international volunteers as carriers of innovation, interculturality and diversity.
The project is a networking one that aims at setting up a thematic trans-continental network on European Voluntary Service.
The YEP project stands as a logical intervention that has to be made in oreder to ensure quality and sustainability for the projects that ARDR is planning to develop jointly with other partner organizations from the EU and Latin America and Africa.
The central theme, the YEP project looks at strengthening of civil society (including youth structures), active citizenship and democracy.
The priorities of the project are the participation of young people and the inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities.
The objectives are the following:
- to increase the capacity of youth structures in managing European Voluntary Service programes 
- to foster long term collaboration in between EU , Latin America and Africa organizations in the frameowrk of European Voluntary Service
- to pomote the European Voluntary Service in Latin America, Africa and the EU
- to set up regional/nation partnerships in order to increase access to the trans-national volunteering programme
- to develop structures and instruments for quality and sustainability in the European Voluntary Service project
The project geography is defined at two levels: regional (at the level where participating organizations from Sierra Leone, Argentina, Peru, Camerun,Romania, Sweden, UK operate) and interantional (in Romania, UK and Sweden).

There are 337 participants out of which 308 are youth workers and 29 are trainers and staffers.

As for the tangible results we expect to achieve:
- 1 trans-national strategy and operational plan on EVS programmes in between Latin America, Africa and EU
- 7 regional campaigns on European Voluntary Service
- 14 trainers trained on delivering European Voluntary Service trainings  
- 70 youth workers trained on managing European Voluntary Service projects
- 1 online platform for trans-national volunteering
- 1 KIT on EVS Quality Management
- at least 3 group EVS projects

The dissemination is to be ensured by means of the project scope (regional and international) and project activities (online platform, regional campaigns, thematic trainings, manual (Kit))
In terms of impact, we expect to:
- boost participation in the EVS projects in between Latin America, Africa and EU organizations,
- increase the quality of EVS projects run in Latin America, Africa and EU
- strengthen collaboration and long term sustainability in between the participating organizations
- ensure the exchange of best practices in the realm of EVS
- raise the awareness of active citizenship role in developing democratic societies
- bring attention on the need to ensure open and equal participation in democratic life of youths with fewer opportunities  

PARTENERS
CHIDO (Sierra Leone): very active on volunteering programmes and on actice citizenship militant campaigning. Not so much having an interantional dimention in their work but a well trained team that is ready to commit to a long term network.

Jovenes de Buena Voluntad (Peru): a local and regional organization deeply involved in community volunteering; they have a strong local taken in all their programmes involving a numerous group of stakehoders.
http://jovenesdebuenavoluntad.blogspot.com/

Association jeunesse verte du cameroun (Cameron): one of the biggest networks of volunteers in Cameron with extensive experience, capacity to disseminate and profesional staff to follow up in the current Network on EVS.
www.ajvsurf.org, www.jeunessevertecameroun.org

OAJNU (Argentina):  a wide network with strong interlinks with various international big organizations and with a substantial network over the country; they have big potential to disseminated, local infrastructure and human resources. 
http://www.oajnu.org/

NBV (Sweden): it is the biggest and oldest network of organizations in Sweden and has a wide coverage spread all over Sweden. They also work in close relationship with the local authorities. In this case they have a big potential to disseminate information and also to manage EVS projects in the filed.
www.nbv.se

ARDR (Romania): has piloted the first group EVS project in Romania and has engineered various tools to support the quality in managing EVS group projects. It has a good experienced staff in managing EVS programmes and it has a good local network of various satkeholders that uphold the EVS projects.
www.ardr.ro

Norfolk Childrens Services (UK): is a public authority that has extensive experience in developing tools for increasing participation in volunteering action and actice citizenship. The very pilot programme that they worked on at a national scale in England, is Hear by Right. Therefore, all over Norfolk they run dozens of youth and volunteering centers.  
www.norfolk.gov.uk

News and events

TC  12th -21st of May,  Romania, Gorj county

The Regional Association for Rural Development developed between 12th and 21st of May a residential  Training Course ,,Quality in EVS management”, in Romania, Gorj county.

The TC gathered the representatives of the seven partner organizations from Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Argentina, Peru, Sweden, UK and Romania who have joint their efforts  since 1st  of November 2009 to work on  the project Youth Empowerment Programme.  Each of the seven partners has recruited for the Training Course one  representative of other organizations in their countries interested in enrolling in the trans-continental network of organizations that will activate and will collaborate through projects within the European Voluntary Service.

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Promoting YEP and EVS through a national tour of seminars in Camerun, 24th of January-23rd of February 2010,

The partner in the Youth Empowerment Network, from Peru, started in January a series of actions with the purpose of promoting YEP and EVS among organizations working in the youth field. Jovenes de Buena Voluntad had a structured and consistent work, unfolding until March in the region of Ventanilla-Lima,  as following: meetings with 20 organisations with the purpose of informing them about YEP and the opportunity that this programme is offering by creating a network of organizations in the framework of EVS; organizing field visits with the purpose of knowing each organization’s activity; organizing a common meeting for the organizations to help them know each other; filling in some forms, to define the volunteer’s activities.

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Promoting YEP and EVS in Peru,

Following the meeting of the YEP partners in Norfolk England the members of Association Jeunesse Verte du Camerun, who are also part of the network of organizations ,,Youngsters for the forests of Central Africa” ( REJEFAC ), have decided to sensitize different actors and partners. The first step was to send a presentation of EVS via electronic email to the partners of Association Jeunesse Verte du Camerun. According to the answers received, AJVC decided to start a tour in 10 regions of the country. The email with the presentation was sent to the Minister of Youth and Environment, to certain delegates, congressmen and local authorities, to the media, to the local OSC and to the members of the network REJEFAC.

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Seminars in Argentina promoting YEP and EVS, February – March 2010

The seminars were interesting and efficient spaces to interact with local NGOs from Buenos Aires, Rosario and Salta – the biggest towns in Argentina where OAJNU ( Organization Argentina of Youth for the United Nations ) has it’s area of action -  to inform their referents about the European Voluntary Service and Project YEP, and to introduce them on how the program works.

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Seminar on promoting EVS, in the frame of YEP project, 22nd-24th of January, Romania

The field action in YEP project started with promoting EVS. Between 22nd and  24th of January the Regional Association for Rural Development organized a seminar in Craiova, launching invitations to all the organizations working in the youth field from Oltenia region. The objectives of the seminar were: to promote EVS; to offer to the participant organizations the possibility to enroll in the network as a sending/hosting organization; to expand the regional partnership on EVS development; to set up the country database with organizations willing to get involved in trans-national volunteering.

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Workshop on network scoping , 12-16th  of November 2009, Norfolk, England

The Workshop on network scoping took place in between 12th and 16th of November, 2009, in Norfolk England, as the first activity that marked the beginning of the Youth Empowerment Programme.

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