Activities

The project activities will be developed in three phases: preparation, implementation and evaluation – as follows:

The preparation activities:

1. Kick-off meeting with the staff and other key persons from our organization and collaborators – presentation of the project, establish the tasks, draw the graphic of activities (Gantt chart), the resources needed analysis (human, financial, logistic etc.)
2. First partners meeting through Skype link, aiming to review the activity and financial plan. We will also map out what skills we bring as individuals partners to the project. This resource profile will be referred to during the project.
3. Launching the project at the level of local communities – including project promotion and presentation of the selection criteria: senior 50+ with artistic hobbies and/or abilities and availability for outdoor activities, being able to share their talents among the learners and other target groups of partner organization. In this respect a press release will be sent by both partners to the local (and, if possible, national) media in the first month of the project and a press conference will be organized after (or, if possible, in the same time) the first videoconference with the partners.
4. Volunteers’ selection

The implementation activities:

1. Volunteers’ training – Romanian partner used the handbook of Rory Daly and Davide di Pietro (thank you Dave for presenting us your publication, it was a pleasure to meet you!) available here
2. Clear identification of the volunteers’ tasks in the host organization. In this respect each partner organization will realize a need analysis (based on the previous activities, target groups and their needs, organizations’ capacity etc.). Then partner organizations will send to each other a draft of activities-plan for hosting volunteers and establish together (in cooperation with the volunteers involved) the final calendar of volunteers’ activities. Each volunteer will bring their own knowledge, skills and ideas which they will share with each other at local level and in preparation for the exchange. This should include pictorial or other evidence of the skill i.e. a sample of the products being made, a video of an activity taking place etc.
3. Volunteers’ support in order to draw the plan of actions they will develop in their future hosting communities (training modules in arts, out-door activities etc.)
4. Information campaign among local communities both in Romania and Sweden – in order to prepare them for hosting foreign volunteers. In Romania Pro Xpert Association will gather the group of learners involved in the project – 20 families at risk of social exclusion due to different reasons: low level of income, leaving in isolated rural areas (5 families), single parents and their children, Roma families (5 families) etc. – and introduce to them the volunteers from Sweden (pictures and short stories about Swedish volunteers’ profile). The learners could choose the volunteer that they intend to work with. In Sweden Viksjöforsbaletten will introduce the project in cooperation with nearby study circles and in public meetings with the help of our present senior members.
5. Videoconference with both partners – in order to establish all the details of volunteers exchanging
6. Drawing, launching and continuous maintenance of a web page/blog
7. Exchanging of volunteers
8. Return of volunteers – both groups will make their own portfolio, write an exchange visit report, collate project exhibition, publicity for dissemination event, profiling interview by local media, television in preparation for big dissemination event.
9. Videoconference with both partners – in order to discuss the volunteers’ exchange reports, put together the volunteers’ feed-back, evaluate the first part of the project.
10. Dissemination events Presentation of Volunteers achievement and exhibition of the project to the general public. Listen to volunteers speech, interact with them and offer next stage support for them i.e. potential work, project. Exhibition with volunteers’ works will be on display at Local museum and library for a month. Press release and profiling interviews in local media (including a TV broadcast in Ramnicu Valcea) – with the participation of volunteers involved in the exchange A brochure of best practices will be edited and printed both in Romanian and Swedish languages, containing the most relevant aspects of the volunteers exchange and how sending and hosting organizations used the senior volunteers’ knowledge, skills and life experiences in adults’ education process.
11. “Official close” of the project: videoconference with both partners (staff, volunteers, learners) and all structures (public and private) involved

The evaluation activities:

1. Questionnaires applied to each volunteer, before and after the exchange, in order to measure how the exchange contribute to their self development
2. Other type of questionnaires will be applied at the level of target groups – learners – volunteers will work with, in order to gauge the degree to which participants assess at the start of the programme both their civic competencies, their self confidence and their own capacity and potential for action and new skill development and then, assess these again at the end and in conjunction with assessing what they have achieved.
3. A media monitoring will be developed during the whole project, in order to assess the impact of the project at the level of the communities involved
4. Also the videoconferences will include on the agenda an issue related to evaluation
5. An evaluation meeting will be organized by each partner after volunteers’ return, in order to:

• Show examples of how skills are being passed on with examples of courses which have been set up, etc. (course material can be shown by practical demonstration at the meeting or by film of a class or activity that took place in the host country).
• debate on where do people go next with the new skills they have learnt – examples of qualifications and progression routes or employment opportunities
• demonstrate methods that individual groups use to collect and exhibit their products, explore if they can be used in the other countries. Bring evidence of how this might contribute to the final project implementation, presentation or exhibition.