This article has been prepared for young people and institutions that want to work locally within the scope of the European Solidarity Program.
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Single Entry Point For Solidarity (European Solidarity Corps) Activities
The European Union is built on solidarity, a shared value which is strongly felt throughout European society. Solidarity defines the European project and provides the necessary unity to cope with current and future crises by holding a strong moral ground. Solidarity provides a clear compass to guide the European youth in their aspirations for a better Union.
Young people need easily accessible opportunities to engage in solidarity activities, which could enable them to express their commitment to the benefit of communities while acquiring useful experience and competences for their personal, educational, social, civic and professional development, thereby improving their employability.
The European Solidarity Corps brings together young people to build a more inclusive society, supporting vulnerable people and responding to societal challenges. It offers an inspiring and empowering experience for young people who want to help, learn and develop and provides a single entry point for such solidarity activities throughout the Union.
It opens up more and better opportunities covering a broad range of areas, such as integration of migrants, environmental challenges, prevention of natural disasters, education and youth activities. It also supports national and local actors, in their efforts to cope with different societal challenges and crises.
The European Solidarity Corps aims also to complement the efforts made by Member States to support young people and ease their school-to-work transition under the Youth Guarantee3 by providing them with additional opportunities to make a start into the labour market in the form of traineeships or jobs within their respective Member State or across borders.
The activities of the European Solidarity Corps support the objectives of the EU Youth Strategy for 2019-2027 which encourages young people to become active citizens, agents of solidarity and positive change for communities across Europe, inspired by EU values and a European identity.
What are Solidarity Projects (National Level)
A Solidarity Project is an in-country solidarity activity initiated, developed, and implemented by at least 5 young people between the ages of 18-30, for a period from 2 to 12 months. The European Solidarity Program offers this young group the chance to take responsibility and undertake a positive change in their local communities, address key challenges, and express solidarity. The project should have a clearly identified topic that the group of young people wishes to explore together and which has to be translated into the project’s concrete daily activities and involve all the participants. The project should also clearly present the European added value. Participation in a solidarity project is an essential non-formal learning experience through which young people can enhance their personal, educational, social, and civic development.
What are the Objectives and Impact?
A Solidarity Project should clearly refer to the European Solidarity Corps’ principles and values, in particular towards solidarity. This common value provides the necessary unity to cope with current and future societal challenges, which young Europeans are willing to help address by expressing their solidarity in practice. A Solidarity Project could address young people with fewer opportunities facing the situations that make their inclusion in society more difficult.
The young people should take the initiative to respond to the issues and challenges around them, which is why a solidarity project should be directly linked to the local community they live in, although some of them can also tackle regional or even national issues. A Solidarity Project should have an impact on the local community by addressing local issues, targeting a specific group or developing local opportunities (particularly in communities located in rural, isolated or marginalised areas) but also through involving different actors and developing new partnerships. Thus, by setting common goals and cooperating together to achieve them, communities can benefit from a solidarity project.
Together with addressing the local challenges, a Solidarity Project should also clearly demonstrate European added value by addressing priorities identified at European level. A Solidarity Project should reflect a common concern for issues within the European society, such as for example integrating third-country nationals, climate change or democratic participation. The European added value can be expressed through any element of a solidarity project that is linked with European issues, values and priorities. The European priorities will also be promoted through dissemination of the results of the project.
Participation in a Solidarity Project will also be an important non-formal learning experience for young people. It should foster sense of initiative, active European citizenship and entrepreneurial spirit. In particular, the participants could absorb in practice the concept of social entrepreneurship by creating new products or services that benefit local community or society in general and address important societal challenges. By putting their own ideas into practice, meeting unexpected situations and finding solutions for them, trying out innovative and creative measures, young people will learn new skills and capacities, express their own creativity and take responsibility for their action. They will boost their self-esteem, autonomy and motivation to learn. Participation in a solidarity project could be also a first step into self-employment or setting up organisations in the solidarity, non-profit or youth sectors.
“SEEING THE POSITIVE CHANGES WE MADE LOCALLY WAS AN INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE. ”
A Youth
Frequently Asked Questions
A group consisting of at least 5 young people between 18-30 years of age, legally residing in the program country, including Turkey, and registered on the European Solidarity Program Portal (https://europa.eu/youth/solidarity_tr) can participate in a Solidarity Project.
It provides the necessary unity to deal with future crises by establishing solidarity among people in your local community and a strong moral ground in this local community. While providing easily accessible opportunities to the young people who carry out the project, they increase their employability by providing professional development opportunities for their personal development: their commitment to the benefit of communities, education, experience, social citizenship. It enables individuals and target audiences, who participate in the project directly or indirectly, to benefit in different ways and to benefit from the European Solidarity Program opportunities.
The application is made to the National Agency (https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/contact/national-agencies_en) of the country where the applicant is legally resident.
For Turkish people, Turkish National Agecy (http://www.ua.gov.tr/) is in the charge of ESC.
The duration of the projects can be as short as 2 months and as long as 12 months.
The group can decide independently on the working methods and how the project will be managed. One of the participants will take the role of legal representative to submit the application (unless an organization applies on behalf of the group). The group organizes the distribution of roles and responsibilities and defines the time to be spent to ensure effective coordination and communication among the participants and fulfill the tasks related to the project’s objectives. The working methods should include all participants of the group in a balanced way at various stages of the project and activities (preparation, implementation, and dissemination). Each phase must be clearly structured.
A group of young people planning a solidarity project can seek support from an organization (public or private). An organization can apply for a grant under the European Solidarity Corps on its behalf. The organization’s role should be mainly administrative to support the group in the project life cycle administrative and financial tasks. However, it can also offer support and guidance in identifying and documenting learning outcomes.
A coach can also support young people implementing Solidarity Projects. A coach is a resource person who can have youth work experience to accompany groups of young people and support their participation. The coach can support young people in the preparation, implementation, and evaluation of a group project and can play different roles according to the group’s needs, but must be an outside person who is not a member of the group. The coach can facilitate and improve the quality of the learning process and help define and document learning outcomes at the end of the project. A group of young people can use the support of one or more coaches, depending on their needs.
Throughout the different phases of the project, group members should reflect on the learning process they experienced. In the planning phase of the project, the learning objectives should be discussed with the project’s general objectives. During implementation, regular thinking should be encouraged, and towards the end of the project, the group should consider measures that make learning outcomes visible. It is recommended to use Youthpass to recognize and validate these learning outcomes.
The group should consider together measures to increase and follow-up the visibility of its projects and the European Solidarity Union (ESC) in general. The project should be framed in a long-term perspective and planned to achieve a sustainable impact. In order to make the project and its results more sustainable, the group is expected to make a final assessment. The final evaluation should enable to assess whether the project’s objectives have been achieved. The group should think about ways to share the project results and with whom they should be shared.
- February 5: Turkey clock 13:00 at the latest, for projects starting between 1 May – 30 September of the same year;
- April 30: Turkey clock 13:00 at the latest, for projects starting between 1 August – 31 December of the same year;
- October 1: Turkey clock 13:00 at the latest, for projects starting between 1 January – 31 May of the same year.