Project HVM - Reinforcement in humanitarian volunteering management

Reinforcement and sustainability in Humanitarian Volunteering Management – Project HVM

In 2017 ADRA Slovakia has joined 2-years long project HVM which is focusing on reinforcement and sustainability in humanitarian volunteering management. The project is realized thanks to the financial support of the European Union within the EU Aid Volunteers initiative (EUAV) and it is led by the French organization ADICE. The project includes twelve partners coming from the European Union, Balkan, Caucasus and Maghreb. It has the form of trainings, mentoring and preparation for the certification, which will guarantee the necessary standards of effective functioning between the sending and receiving organization and the safe stay of the volunteer.

The aim is to strengthen organization in these areas:

1. Safety within the scope of humanitarian aid for organisations and volunteers;

2. Needs assessment and logistics with the goal to guarantee humanitarian mission of the volunteer;

3. Volunteering management;

4. Ensuring the lasting impact of the humanitarian volunteering management through the online platform;

5. Global dissemination of the project´s results and motivation of the organisations to create a platform with the methods and tools for the work with volunteers;

Year 2017: Kick off seminar, trainings, mentoring

At the beginning of February 2017 a Kick off seminar of this HVM project took place at ADRA Slovakia in Bratislava. It was an opportunity for EU partners to build a strategy for trainings preparation and to decide further steps for strengthening partners’ capacities. Throughout the entire project the continual mentoring of leading NGOs will be very important, as well as an exchange of knowledge and experience in the field of volunteering across the regions.

In May 2017 the first training took place in French city Roubaix and it was focused on the safety of humanitarian volunteers. On May 18 an international conference on Volunteering topic was held in Lille. Representatives from ten partner organizations and other guests discussed the challenges of Volunteering outside the EU.

The partner organization ADICE (the leader of HVM project) has created a series of educational videos that would make sending and hosting organizations, humanitarian volunteers themselves, as well as local community better understand the principles of volunteering process in Global South countries. The first video is about ensuring the quality of volunteering management, the second video is about selecting suitable candidates for their volunteering missions. The third video relates directly to the safety of volunteers in the field and the fourth video is about the ensuring volunteering projects’ visibility and responsible communication of volunteer with various target groups of information recipients (donors, family, general public, media, partner NGOs, beneficiaries of development assistance, local people etc.).

Year 2018: More trainings, certification and conference

To inform the society about the organization’s activities, as well as current project cycles and strategies is important for making development cooperation and development more effective and transparent. In summer of 2018, we trained and coached seven non-EU nonprofit organizations in Morocco and Turkey within the HVM project. Afterwards these organizations will be ready to receive humanitarian volunteers through the EU Aid Volunteers initiative. In one of them, Small Project Istanbul particularly, we also visited a community center for Syrian refugees where they can meet together, educate and earn some money by the production of various small hand-made items.

In July 2018, our organization ADRA Slovakia successfully passed the preparatory process and got the certification from the European Commission as a well-functioning organization – sending volunteers abroad.

In autumn of 2018 our Project Managers attended an international conference on the deployment of humanitarian volunteers to the developing world.

We continue to mentor partner organizations within individual HVM modules and we prepare a series of media outlets to help other Slovak organizations to learn more about the management of humanitarian volunteers and EU Aid volunteers initiative. Thanks to this dissemination of information and education via media we can also increase capacity in this field among other Slovak humanitarian nonprofits.

Our HVM project in Slovak Media:

Why is Humanitarian volunteering management so important (Advent magazine / Print)
How to Strengthen NGOs’ Capacity in Humanitarian Volunteering Management (interview with the Director of ADRA Slovakia) (Prohuman)
Humanitarian volunteering in developing countries and how to prepare volunteers for their mission (Mladez.sk)
Daniel Kaba: Volunteering abroad is neither traveling, nor saving the entire world (Teraz.sk / TASR – The News Agency of the Slovakia)
To know how to face risks during volunteering is not an art, but the question of good preparation (Mladiinfo)
International Volunteering Day: An added value and symbolism of volunteering (Euractiv.sk)
The first “EU Aid Volunteers” will be sent from Slovakia to their missions soon (EuropskeNoviny.sk)
Recognizing motivations and reasons of going abroad for a volunteering stay (Charita magazine / Print);
Development assistance as an illegal migration prevention (Interview with Project Manager of ADRA Slovakia about Volunteering Projects of ADRA (Profit magazine / Print)