Active citizenship

Our focus on young people who get involved in society as volunteers in many different ways has become stronger with regard to the step-by-step implementation of the vision of a democratic European civil society.

Our seminars offer participants impulses for reflection and opportunities to understand their voluntary work as a learning environment for the development and strengthening of civil society where they develop necessary and relevant civic competences and transfer them to a concrete socio-political context.

Apart from national seminars, we also organise Franco-German seminars in cooperation with the International Youth Services (ijgd). Participants of these seminars are young people in voluntary services where one issue is the comparison of conditions for active citizenship in both countries. Intercultural comparison provides the space for an exchange of experience and an opportunity to discuss what level of importance and what level of socio-political significance should be attached to voluntary service schemes with regard to strengthening young people’s active citizenship in Europe.

Many years of experience managing European projects come to our advantage during the planning and implementation process. As coordinating partner, we conducted the EU pilot project “European Voluntary Service for All” (EVS4ALL) from 2015-2017, together with 13 non-governmental foundations, institutions, and organisations experienced with volunteering from France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Romania, and the UK. Supported by the Allianz Cultural Foundation, the project aimed at improving access to the existing European Voluntary Service for disadvantaged young people.