ICYE Eastlinks SEE Multilateral EVS projects with South East Europe

The International Cultural Youth Exchange, in cooperation with its members in EU and partners in SEE countries is currently engaged in a number of YOUTH programme multilateral EVS projects with the aim to foster long-term voluntary service exchanges with South East Europe, in particular with the former Republic of Yugoslavia.

The SEE II - ICYE Eastlinks long term volunteering project in EU and SEE countries involved sending and receiving of a total of 10 volunteers for a duration of 6 months from June to December 2003.

During the final evaluation meeting for volunteers which took place from December 11th to 14th, 2003 in Berlin, Germany, the volunteers presented their host organisations and the concrete results of their work. The volunteers as well as the coordinators’ team were impressed to see the multiple initiatives and concrete results which had been created in the considerably short time of 6 months.

In view of the recent history of the former Yugoslav Republic, it was highly interesting to hear the reports and reflections on the situation of the different ethnic groups in the local host communities in Bosnia, Croatia and Macedonia.

Even though many administrative obstacles had to be overcome in the pilot phase, the feedback of new SEE host organisations was extremely positive.

We believe that these first experiences are extremely valuable for both, organisations and participants in EU - SEE European Voluntary Service projects.

In order to have an ongoing documentation of experiences which can be accessed easily, we have decided to let each volunteer present his/her view and experience in a personal page on www.seeyouth.info under "Examples of good practice".

This website was created as a tool for the ICYE Eastlinks SEE YOUTH information project to promote the YOUTH programme in the SEE region.

We trust you will make good use of this site and enjoy the reports and pictures. We are sure that this site will grow more and more with every new generation of volunteers!

Have a look!