European Alliance for Volunteer Support – Learnings from Covid-19 Crisis (ERAS II)

June 13, 2023

Project ERAS II addresses the impact of Covid-19 on volunteering. It continues a partnership established in 2021 with the ERAS – European Alliance for Volunteer Support project. Six partners from Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Portugal, and Slovenia will explore the impact of Covid-19 on voluntarism and support voluntarism by local authorities for better crisis response.

The Covid-19 pandemic affected the functioning of our democracies and civic participation. Due to the need to prevent the spread of infection, it was necessary to impose strict restrictions on the freedom of individuals and society. With this project, we will reflect on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on community life and on forms of civic participation during the Covid-19 crisis. To observe this, we will focus on active citizenship and civic participation through the act of volunteering.

Through our previous activities in the first ERAS project, we have touched upon the effect of Covid-19 on voluntarism as well as the need for greater support of towns to voluntary work and voluntary organisations in their towns. With the ERAS II project, we will further explore the impact of Covid-19 on voluntarism, and support voluntarism by local authorities for better crisis response, we will also continue improving conditions for the development of voluntarism in partner countries and across Europe and through it also improve active citizenship. Partners will share information, good practices, knowledge, and expertise at 4 international events to achieve that.

All ERAS partners firmly believe that volunteering is a key element of a modern democratic society, and by nurturing and promoting volunteering and spreading solidarity values, Europeans can make great strides towards a more developed, inclusive, and dynamic society with quality opportunities for all.

We will create an online platform that will be used to share information, and expertise as well as the results of our previous cooperation (Good practices, European Volunteer Stories videos, regulations of volunteering in partner countries and guidelines for the development of volunteer programs). The platform will also provide a place for the presentation of participating towns and organisations and offer a partner search platform for further cooperation to spread benefits, opportunities, and the importance of volunteer programs.

We will raise awareness and promote voluntarism with a travelling photographic exhibition with photos representing volunteers and their work during the Covid-19 crisis and highlight the important impact and contribution of volunteers in times of crisis.

By discussing how volunteerism was affected by the Covid-19 crisis in each partner country, as well as how local authorities can support volunteering to assure a swift and effective response in times of crisis, we will extract the best practices and identify shortcomings for each. Based on the results we will talk about possible actions to improve conditions and to transfer examples of good practices to decision-makers in the countries concerned.

Facebook page ERAS – European Alliance for volunteer support