Projects > Think Future - Volunteer Together (senior volunteering)

Think Future - Volunteer Together (senior volunteering)
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Think Future Volunteer Together
 
INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROJECT
    
 
Project Background
In 2050 60+ population in Europe will increase to 35,1%. European Union (EU) encourages the Member States to promote the activities stimulating so called the active ageing of the European population. However, this active ageing should no longer be seen only as ensuring that people work longer. It should be referring to active engagement of elderly beyond retirement – e.g. as volunteers. In this sense, volunteering is not mainly about repeating tasks that have been done in professional life, but it has to do with participation, solidarity and active citizenship.
    
 
 
Opportunities, differences and difficulties of volunteering for all ages was the topic of the conference organised in the framework of the CEV General Assembly in Cluj Napoca (Romania) in May 2005, hosted by the Pro Vobis. The conference “Volunteering for all ages – Summit of generations” shed new light on differences among European countries regarding the involvement of elderly people in volunteering activity. Experiences and data show that in East & Central European countries elderly people are extremely reluctant to engage in community action. In the same e.g. in Italy large numbers of volunteers are retired people of both sexes over 60 years of age. The exchange of good practises between the countries with different senior volunteering patterns could be mutually beneficial - to the beneficiary and the larger community, but also to the volunteer who through active engagement preserves more easily physical and intellectual independence.

Project description:
Think Future, Volunteer Together is the project financed by the European Commission in the frame of the ENEA preparatory action of the DG EMPL - Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities on active ageing and mobility of elderly people. In this action, volunteering was recognized as on of the tools to mobilize the full potential of older people for active ageing and their contribution to society. The project coordinator and manager is one of the CEV Italian member organisation - SPES – Centro di Servizio per il Volontariato del Lazio,

General objective of the project is to demonstrate how the exchange of good practice through international exchanges of elderly volunteers (target group are people over 55 years old) among 5 EU countries - Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia can contribute to change of the negative attitudes and how it can stimulate social engagement, thus benefiting local communities.
 
    
Main activities were designed by taking into account the differences of the elderly volunteering sector between the EU ‘old’ and ‘new’ member states and they include 100 volunteers exchanges followed by the microprojects implemented by volunteers on the basis of their experiences learned abroad.
    
The project foresees also activities for the promotion of the participation of older people in volunteering activities, analysis of results and proposal of programmes and actions for increasing the involvement of older people in volunteering activities at European level, which will be presented on the final project conference in Brussels in November 2009.
    
Time frame: 24 months (from December 2007 to December 2009)


    
PARTNERS:

  SPES – Centro di Servizio per il Volontariato del Lazio, Italy (project coordinator)

 Slovenska filantropija, Slovenia

 C.A.R.D.O. Slovakia

 ÖKA - Önkentes Központ Alapitvany, Hungary

 Pro Vobis Centrul National de Voluntariat, Romania 
 CEV - the European Volunteer Centre, Belgium (policy advising, promotion and dissemination of the project results at the EU level)
           
On the national level, in Italy there are 4 partners:
Commune di Roma (City of Rome)
AUSER – Association for self-management of services and solidarity
ADA – Association for the aged people’s rights
ANTEAS – National Association for the Active Third Age for Solidarity

   
    FURTHER INFORMATION and LINKS:
    
    
External Links:
ProVobis website about the project (in Romanian)
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LATEST NEWS

 
[24 November 2009] Think Future Volunteer Together FINAL CONFERENCE - Brussels - 19th November 2009

 


 
The Final Conference of the project took place on 19th November 2009 in the European Parliament (Brussels) and was organised by CEV in partnership with all project’s partners. It presented the very interesting results of the project, including methodology of the exchanges, the role of the different partners and practical recommendations on how to support further senior volunteering in Europe.

The conference gathered more than 100 participants - representatives of the project partners, but also civil society organisations, policy-makers from different levels and other stakeholders. The conference was opened by Renzo Razzano, President of SPES, which was the initiator of the project, Marian Harkin, MEP and the host of the conference and Eva Hambach, CEV President. Two introductory speeches were made by Krzysztof Iszkowski, from DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities of the European Commission and Markus Held, CEV Director. This was followed by various presentations made by representatives of the project partners and senior volunteers who took part in the exchanges. In the afternoon, a panel debate gathered representatives of various stakeholders and policy-makers at European, national and local levels. The discussion addressed the main policy recommendations to be made in order to promote senior volunteering all over Europe.

The main working language of the conference was English and there was simultaneous interpretation in the 5 languages of the project: Italian, Slovenian, Slovakian, Romanian and Hungarian.

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[23 June 2009] The third and last partners’ meeting took place between 17 and 20 June in the lovely Romanian town – Cluj Napoca and it was hosted by Pro Vobis. The project partners discussed the outcomes of the project, which will be included in the Project final report (available at this website in early autumn) and they start preparing the final conference which will take place in November in Brussels. They also had a chance to visit Pro Vobis volunteer centre and discuss with the senior volunteers who took part in the exchanges. The project was visited by the representative of the European Commission, who took part in the discussions on how is the best way to valorise the project results through publications and conference.

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[19 March 2009] The European Commission organised on 11 of March a seminar on " Volunteering of older people and the role of public policies". The objective of the seminar was to collect proposals of the stakeholders on the role expected from the European Union in order to foster volunteering of older people in Europe, and beyond proposals on a possible European year 2012 on intergenerational solidarity and active ageing in order to prepare the decision of the Commission. The seminar brought together members of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Demographic Issues and other stakeholders such as policy-makers, NGOs, trade unions, and business which discussed how the EU and national public authorities can support senior volunteering. 11 representatives of CEV and its members organisations participated in the event - among them representatives of C.A.R.D.O, MOVISIE, ÖKA , Slovenska Filantropija, SPES, Volunteering Ireland and Vlaams Steunpunt Vriwilligerswerk.

During the seminar such topics were presented and discussed as: evidence on volunteering of older persons from statistical studies, societal outcome and individual benefits for older volunteers, barriers to volunteering and conditions of successes as well as public policy support to promote volunteering. Renzo Razzano, Vice President of CEV and President of SPES, spoke in the name of CEV on the Plenary debate on support at EU level with representatives of social partners, governments, NGO, presenting some results of the Think Future Volunteer Together project . An important accent during discussions was put on European Year of Volunteering 2011 and participants voiced a need to ensure synergies between 2011 and 2012 being European year on intergenerational solidarity and active ageing.

The presentations of the seminar are now available on the European Commission data base CIRCA at the following address:
http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/empl/demographic_change/library?l=/volunteering_2009-03-11&vm=detailed&sb=Title  

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[25 November 2008]   On 24 and 25 th November Ksenija Fonovic from SPES and Kamila Czerwińska from CEV took part in the 2nd European Demographic Forum 'BETTER SOCIETIES FOR FAMILIES AND OLDER PEOPLE' organised in Brussels in the European Commission Charlemagne building. The Forum tackled issues such as recent demographic developments, needs of an ageing population as well as family policies. One of the most important features of the Forum was volunteering. It appeared as one of the tools to support elderly people in their independent living and active ageing. The recent Flash Eurobarometer 247 survey conducted in September 2008 shows that 73 % of responding elderly answered that they would consider participating in community and volunteer work after retirement. Also 44 % of persons said that they have already planned or plan to do volunteer work. Volunteering becomes a great potential for the EU when it comes to active ageing and demographic change. For more information on the Forum, click here. For an interesting example of a good practice on how to support  volunteering by older people through public policy click here. 
    
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[13-14 November 2008] The second partners' meeting of the Project  took place in Bratislava on 13-14th November and it was hosted by the Slovak project partner C.A.R.D.O.  Duing the meetig partners discussed their experience on the practical challanges related to oranisation of exchanges after 1 year of the Project's implementation. On the second day, there was a public presentation of the Project, where Slovak volunteers talked about their exchanges in Italy, Slovenia and Hungary.
    
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[10 October 2008] Ms Zofia Tornoczi - the country manager from the Hungarian project's partner  ÖKA - Önkentes Központ Alapitvany gave a presentation on the TFVT project on the first European conference “Minority Ethnic and Migrant Elders across Europe – from Challenges to Opportunities” which took place in Bonn, Germany between 30 September and 2 October 2008. The conference was organised by the North Rhine -  Westphalia's Ministry for Generations, Family, Women and  Integration and co-financed by the European Commission in the frame of the same preparatory action as TFVT Project  (ENEA).  Ms Tornoczi presented the background, the methods and the firts results of the Project after 10 months of its implementation. You can find the presentation here.        
    
 
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[05 March 2008] The first partners' meeting took place in Rome, in the end of February 2008. It was organised by SPES, Italian organisation coordinating the whole project. On the first meeting, partners discussed the preparation of the exchanges and the project was presented to the Italian public. Here you can find Programme of the event     
    
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This project is supported by the European Commission in the framework of the ENEA project

  
 
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