Volunteering - Citizenship in Action

 

The project “Volunteering - Citizenship in Action” was a bilateral youth exchange which took place between 18th and 25th of March  2013 in Blagoevgrad and gathered 28 young people from Bulgaria and Italy.

 

Participants shared volunteering experience and discussed possible ways to make volunteering a tool for social inclusion and considered different ways to promote it among the youth.

The exchange promoted active citizenship through volunteering, which is one of the most brilliant opporrunities to become active citizen of the community.

Project proved that volunteers actually can establish new community norms, based on solidarity and tolerance, and that volunteering is an effective way to combat social exclusion. Project involved representatives of the local orphanage. We tried to involve the maximum possible number in order to give them an opportunity get an intrenational experience.

 

They themselves became volunteers through taking part in the 2 public actions - flash mob and the activity “Volunteers in action”.

Both of them aimed to promote the project`s message among local community and to show the benefits of volunteering.

For making this message more visible, we organized a photo exhibition. It took place in both countries, Bulgaria and Italy, in April 2013.