Launched exactly one year ago - on 1st March 2017 - by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional & Urban Policy thanks to the European Regional & Development Fund (ERDF), the “Interreg Volunteer Youth” (IVY) initiative aims at involving young volunteers to support, promote and report the concrete achievements of Interreg programmes and projects, as well as generally promote cooperation across European borders and related values such as solidarity.
- 01 March 2018
Launched exactly one year ago - on 1st March 2017 - by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional & Urban Policy thanks to the European Regional & Development Fund (ERDF), the “Interreg Volunteer Youth” (IVY) initiative aims at involving young volunteers to support, promote and report the concrete achievements of Interreg programmes and projects, as well as generally promote cooperation across European borders and related values such as solidarity. IVY is part of the broader European Solidarity Corps (ESC) initiative launched by the European Commission and is indeed contributing to spread and enhance a sense of solidarity and civic awareness among an increasing number of young Europeans.
The strength of IVY is to create a win-win situation: there are indeed only winners. Firstly, the volunteers who acquire a unique experience of personal growth as well as enhance and gain skills that they can employ in their future personal, professional, formal and non-formal adventures. Secondly, the host organisations, being Interreg Programmes or project beneficiaries, who get valuable support and have the chance to make their activities more effective and visible thanks to the volunteers’ fresh and out-of-the-box way of thinking.
After only one year since its launch, the initiative – managed by the Association of European Border Regions (AEBR) – has proven to deliver the expected results: IVY has already involved over 100 volunteers coming from 21 EU countries and deployed in 76 host organisations in 20 EU member states. The volunteers operate in a wide variety of Interreg missions such as: teaching school children at the German-French border about cross-border cooperation with creative games; helping young people find a job in the Danube area; supporting shared projects on the health systems in Estonia and Germany ; putting research skills at the benefit of a project ensuring long-term sustainability of water supply, treatment and end-use in Irish and Welsh regions. Many more examples and stories can be found in the IVY blog where volunteers share their experiences & impressions on being part of the Interreg world.
The IVY pilot phase has officially been extended until end of August 2018 so to allow more and more participants to the advantage of such a successful initiative.
In order to celebrate the first year of IVY, a social media campaign will take place between 1st March (start of IVY) and the 20th March (first IVY & ESC deployment ever) 2018. The social media campaign (mainly on Facebook and Twitter) will consist of a series of videos shot by volunteers where they will share some of their thoughts & feelings as an engaged young EU citizen and based on their IVY experience.