seminar on intercultural and global citizenship...

SEMINAR ONINTERCULTURAL andGLOBAL CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION

4 TO 8 JUNE 2014 - HAMBURG, GERMANY Learning mobility organisations: working together for youth participation

This event was jointly organized by

The financial support fromYouth in action and CISV International Peace Fund is gratefully acknowledged.

Graphic facilitator: Paul Van AarleDesign: Julien Peyre

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsi ble for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

1.Executive SummaryWe – CISV, EFIL, EEE-YFU, and Federation EIL – share a dedication to promoting intercultural learning, international friendship and peace. From June 4th to 8th 2014, we organised our first international event together entitled Seminar on Intercultural and Global Citizenship Education, which took place in Hamburg, Germany.

This report summarizes how our four learning mobility organisations have successfully initiated working together to increase the quality and quantity of our:

q educational content and resources q training q leadership development q advocacy & partnerships with like-minded

organisations.

The Seminar on Intercultural and Global Citizenship Education marked a new high point for sharing and learning across our organisations. Leaders in Experiment, EEE-YFU, EFIL and CISV identified best practices and built partnerships. Over 50 participants from Europe and overseas met during the seminar, contributed to it, and brought new learning back home to over 25 countries and local organisations.The seminar itself modelled best practice in non-for-mal education by combining

q facilitated work and discussions in small and large groups organised in four thematic strands

q conceptual contributions from external experts in key areas such as diversity, motivating volunteers, and organisational theory

q live documentation of the event by a visual facilitator

The success of the event’s organisation and learning design was confirmed by the overwhelmingly positive evaluations made by participants.

Key outcomes which occured after the event include

q regular information sharing between our four international networks

q continued contacts between individuals at all levels and from all four organisations

q a joint training ‘ COMPASS 2014’ in December 2014, organised by YFU Argentina and CISV Brazil involving volunteers from YFU Argentina, YFU Brasil - Intercâmbio Cultural, YFU Mexico, YFU Uruguay, and CISV Brazil

q a joint training ‘Exchange Voices!’ organised by EFIL and EEE-YFU on advocacy and co-operation with stakeholders at national level will take place in June 2015 in Leuven, Brussels

q a joint effort for a follow-up project on European level entitled DEAR21: Developing Educational Activities from Research for the 21st Century, will take place in September 2015 in Mollina, Spain at the University of Youth and Development

The seminar highlighted fundamental commonalities among our organisations’ goals and the considerable diversity in how we reach them. It provided the first ever opportunity for people in our four organisations to learn from each other in a structured manner at the European and international levels. It also planted the seeds for further co-operation by sensitising participants to each other’s organisational culture, our diverse local realities – and, first and foremost, our shared goals.

2.IntroductionThis report provides an overview of the work we undertook and the discussions held during the Seminar on Intercultural and Global Citizenship Education, June 4th to 8th 2014 in Hamburg, Germany. The report will help you learn more about each of the four partner organisations and will help you engage with them, particularly in collaborative projects involving two or more of the partners: CISV, EFIL, EEE-YFU, and Federation EIL.

How should I read this report?You are, of course, invited to read the whole report, and that way you will get the most complete picture. However, since we are all short of time, you might use one of the following quick reader strategies:

q I’m extremely busy: Only read the Executive Summary and the Conclusion

q I’m only really interested in Training or Leadership or Advocacy & Partnerships or Educational Resources: In addition to the above, read chapters 3 or 4 or 5 or 6.

q I am only interested in real actions resulting from the Seminar: Only read the action plans

Why did the four organisations decide working together in this partnership? CISV, EFIL, EEE-YFU, and Federation EIL share a dedica-tion to promoting intercultural learning, international friendship and peace. Each of our organisations brings a unique set of competencies and experiences to the table, regarding educational content and resources, as well as leadership development and partnerships with like-minded organisations. The four organisations have developed over the years in these fields, but at international and European levels they have all had limited opportunities to share and learn with other organisations in a structured manner. The seminar was developed in order to provide young leaders (i.e. trainers, educators, decision-makers) in Experiment, EEE-YFU, EFIL and CISV with an opportunity to identify best practices and build partnerships.

What were the aims and objectives of the Seminar? The seminar’s overall aim was to increase the effectiveness of the CISV, YFU, AFS and FEIL networks in their work with tens of thousands of young people each year in promoting intercultural understanding and global citizenship through the development of skills, such as intercultural competences, leadership, and creativity. It brought together volunteer and staff leaders from the four networks to explore and exchange practices in key areas, thereby ensuring that the seminar’s outcomes will be followed up on in the four organisations.

The seminar’s specific objectives were to:

q develop a better understanding of how CISV, YFU, AFS and EFIL enable and strengthen young people in their work towards peace and increased mutual understan-ding through exchange and intercultural and global citizenship education.

q explore the state of the art in approaches and methodo-logy in intercultural and global citizenship education and their impact in empowering young people to be actors of change in their own communities.

q promote awareness of links between their own and the problems and challenges their peers face in other countries.

q network youth workers from around Europe who work with intercultural and global citizenship education through learning mobility in order to exchange best practices on youth participation within their educational programmes and organisational structures.

q celebrate the creative potential of each participant and the opportunities of joining forces to have greater impact in their societies by encouraging increased co-operation between young volunteers.

q enable the seminar planning taskforce composed of volunteers from all initiating organisations to take leading roles in developing and running a seminar for their peers in their organisations and for young people active in the field.

Diversity, intercultural communication and competence – An external point of viewProf. Daniela Gröschke (University of Jena) presented and discussed with us some challenging thoughts on diversity and related issues.

Two key points made were:

First, it is of fundamental importance to think of diversity as something that is subjectively experienced, rather than being objectively measurable. We tried it out, asking seminar partici-pants “How diverse is our group here in Hamburg?” and the views expressed differed very widely, underlining the point.

Second, in order to foster the efficacy of diverse groups, we should shift the focus of attention away from developing indivi-duals’ intercultural competencies and towards the creation of contexts that are as supportive to collaboration as possible. After all, a diverse group that is supported to become a highly performing team will do so even if not all group members are highly interculturally competent.

The lively discussion during and after Prof. Gröschke’s presenta-tion showed that she had provi-ded excellent food for thought for the Seminar participants!

“It was very interesting, provoca-tive some times, but very interes-ting. And also the guest speakers brought some quality, I think.”

Francisco, CISV Portugal

Seminar SummaryOver three and a half days, the seminar combined plenary sessions, small group workshops and guest speakers. Participants attended one of the four thematic strands of workshops on a) training, b) leadership, c) partnerships with external partners (as well as advocacy), and d) development of educational resources.

Three questions guided the discussions in each of the strands:1. How do our organisations, through our core activities and intercultural and global citizenship

education, promote peace and increased mutual understanding?2. What is the state of the art in intercultural and global citizenship education?3. Can (and how can) further co-operation between the partners contribute to growth and development

of international education and intercultural exchange organisations?

Who participated in the seminar? Among the 52 participants we counted 29 nationali-ties, and our ages ranged from the youngest partici-pant of 20, to the oldest of 50 years; we were roughly 2/3 women and 1/3 men. All of us are active in one (or more) of the four partner organisations, whether that is on the local level, nationally, regionally (e.g. Europe), or internationally, and whether that is as a volunteer, a member of staff – or even both.

Programme The programme consisted of plenary sessions for getting to know each other and sharing, and sessions in smaller groups. The sessions were either by topic/strand (Educational Resources, Advocacy & Partnerships, Training, Leadership & Participation) or by organisation (AFS, YFU, CISV, Experiment). Other input elements included experts presenting theoretical perspectives on Diversity and Intercultural Education, and on Volunteering and Organisational Management.

Finally participants were given the ownership of the seminar through an Open Space session where they suggested topics to discuss and reflection groups every evening where they gave feedback about the day.

After a welcome and getting to know each other session, participants got to know each other’s organisations in a plenary session with short presen-tations by representatives of each organisation and a Question & Answers time. Participants then divided by organisations and analysed their organisation’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOTs) for each of the topics discussed in the Seminar, namely Educational resources, Advocacy & Partnerships, Training, Leadership & Participation. Each organisation also included the differences within their network regarding a specific topic.

The first round of parallel ‘strand meetings’ followed,

where participants were divided by topic/strand and presented the SWOT of their organisation for that specific topic. A discussion followed on the definition on the spectrum of each topic.The second strand meeting focused on sharing best practices and identifying the issues the organisations present could work together and/or learn from each other on.After sharing the Strand meeting discussions’ first outcomes in Plenary, in the 3rd Strand meeting they developed action plans by topic. After that they dis-cussed them divided by organisation in order to check their feasibility and potential challenges. Finally, they then presented them in a plenary session. The Closing session allowed for an overview on the outcomes of the seminar, a sum up and clustering of the action plans presented the day before, and a presentation of the planned follow up. Evaluation with participants followed. After the participants’ departure, the project team stayed at the venue for an evaluation.

What did we get out of the seminar? The seminar marked a leap forward in the quality and amount of collaboration between the four networks. Already by developing and preparing the seminar, staff (the “Steering Group”) and volunteers (“Project Team”) of the four networks developed strong working relations and joint working routines which did not exist before. During the seminar, over 50 participants got to know each other and thereby established personal bonds across organisations and countries. As an outcome of the seminar, the action plans document the great variety of commitments for further collaboration. It is still too early to draw a final “bottom line” summing up all the results of the seminar, as many of the actions plans are still in their early stages. But the seminar has already succeeded in establishing new channels of communication across organisations at various levels, and in generating new ideas and increased commitment for co-operation across the four networks.

3.TrainingDuring the seminar, participants agreed on a working definition of what we mean by training: “Training contributes to the personal development of anyone involved in our programmes: through gaining attitudes, skills and knowledge needed to fulfil our mission.” There were differences in opinion about wording, but the purpose and importance of training as well as the conceptual triangle of what training develops – attitudes, skills and knowledge – was widely shared and readily agreed among participants.

How do training systems work in each organisation? Content, structure, people and resources

EFILOne of EFIL’s main activities is to provide capacity building oppor-tunities to volunteers and staff of its AFS member organisations.

EFIL organises about 8 internatio-nal trainings every year, including a Training of Trainers of 8 to 10 days with a practice session of 1 to 2 days. EFIL’s secretariat puts together a training calendar which covers a period of 24 months. Most of EFIL trainings are supported by external funding from the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe and the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission.Moreover, since 2008 EFIL organises every year a Volunteer Summer Summit, an event gathering about 200 volunteers from Europe and beyond who attend training sessions on different topics.

EFIL has a European Pool of Trainers (EPOT) which gathers trainers nominated by EFIL’s 28 member organisations. Members of the Pool do not need to attend the EFIL’s Training for Trainers in order to be members of the Pool, though they are encouraged to. The EPOT now consists of about 100 trainers. EFIL draws from EPOT to recruit trainers for its events and for the Travelling Trainers scheme. This scheme allows EFIL Member Organisations to request the participation of a trainer from the EPOT to take part in national trainings or volunteer meetings. To encourage exchanges of exper-tise, interesting methodologies, ideas and concepts, EFIL funds a limited number of the travelling trainers per year. EFIL pays for the travel but does not cover the other expenses such as prepara-tion, accommodation, etc.

EFIL has a Training and Intercultural Learning Advisory Body (TICLAB), which is com-posed of 2 EFIL staff members, 1 AFS International staff member, 2 volunteers who are members of the European Pool of Trainers and 2 Organisational Development Co-ordinators from its member organisations. The TICLAB meets once a year to monitor the implementation of EFIL’s ICL

and Training strategies, and provides advice to EFIL’s Training coordinators regarding training needs in the network, training evaluations, etc. .

AFSAFS has recently started the AFS Intercultural Link Learning Program which is an exciting new multi-step training and assessment programme designed to further develop intercultural learning facilitation competencies for AFS volunteer and staff worldwide. This Programme includes a variety of trainings, starting with the basic level which all AFS volunteers should attend (also called ‘What every AFSer should know’) until the training programme to become a ‘Qualified AFS International Trainer’.

AFS International also organises every one or two years the AFS Academy where various trainings are offered for staff and volunteers within the AFS network. Ad-hoc international trainings are organised if needed for specific target groups.InterCultur, a sister organisation of AFS Germany, organises every year in partnership with AFS orga-nisations and universities worldwide, the so-called Summer Academies (Karlsruhe, Brazil, Istanbul, Malaysia)

On a local level, AFS Volunteers receive extensive training in communication practice and theory, so that they can facilitate intercultural learning experiences for participants and host families, as well as local schools, educators and community orga-nisations. Some AFS organisations have a national

Pool of Trainers and a national Training of Trainers programme.

With support from a wide pool of resources, including a distinguished Educational Advisory Council, an active AFS Network Intercultural Learning Work Group, professional staff and grassroots volunteers, AFS makes regular and significant contributions to intercultural learning and global education.

CISV InternationalTraining is a fundamental aspect of quality assurance for CISV. It helps prepare and equip volunteers and participants for their important roles and responsi-bilities within CISV and beyond. Well trained people are of the highest importance to CISV because only they can build a healthy organisation and provide a safe environment and a high level of educational experience for programme participants.

CISV International delivers a range of specific trainings, which include training for each of its seven educational programmes, Train the Trainer (TTT), Risk Management, Chapter Development, and Junior Branch training.

Most CISV International trainings are delivered at international training events known as Regional Training Forums (RTFs) which are hosted by CISV Chapters in all three CISV regions. RTFs are funded by CISV International, National Associations, and participants’ fees. CISV National Associations can also request CISV International trainers to deliver

training in their country; in that case the costs have to be borne by the CISV National Association. CISV International’s trainers are TTT certified and part of Regional Delivery Teams. CISV publishes all of its official training documents and materials online at: http://www.cisv.org/resources/training/

YFUEEE-YFU One of EEE-YFU’s main working areas is Educational Activities, mainly consisting of training courses for volunteers and staff. EEE-YFU organises about 5 training courses each year. Most EEE-YFU trainings are supported by external funding from the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe and the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission. Training courses are organised according to EEE-YFU’s non-formal educa-tion Quality Assurance Framework and often involve at least one external trainer in order to ensure high quality and continually improve over time.EEE-YFU has a European Trainer Network which gathers 36 trainers from YFU’s 30 member organi-sations. The European Trainer Network offers the possibility to work in international teams of trainers at internal and external educational events. It is a place for volunteer trainers to further improve and develop training skills as well as gain more experience in non-formal education and intercultural learning.EEE-YFU draws from its European Trainer Network (and beyond) for its events and for its Flying Trainers programme. The Flying Trainers provide opportuni-ties to Member Organisations to request trainers from

the European Trainer Network, with part of the travel expenses paid for through a special fund. Finally, EEE-YFU’s largest educational activity each year is the Young Europeans’ Seminar (YES), an event that gathers together all intra-European exchange students at the end of their exchange year. About 100 volunteers gather together to support the event, including a content team with a sub-team of about 25 Workshop Leaders. The YES offers exchange participants the opportunity to reflect on their recent exchange experience, explore various subjects related to European values, identity and global citizenship, and empowers participants to act as multipliers in the future, inspire the ideals of intercultural learning, understanding, tolerance, solidarity and peace.

YFUAt the global level, YFU conducts trainings through the YFU Academy, which is steered by the YFU Academy working group. The YFU Academy working group represents operational and training expertise from across the globe and determines the topics and content of the 3 to 4 annual trainings conducted by the YFU Academy and which target members of staff. The YFU Academy also develops online training courses and the international level provides mento-ring support to new leaders in the network.At the national and local level, many YFU organi-sations organise trainings for volunteers, bringing together elements of practical work as well as inter-cultural learning.

ExperimentOver the past years the seven European FEIL organisations have reignited ideas of conducting and organising common trainings among the organisations. In previous decades there were trainings and common seminars conducted across Europe. All of this diminished in the 1990s. One of the reasons was and still is, that members of FEIL do not have to organise the same programmes with the same target groups. Member organisations are free to work with many different organi-sations in many different areas worldwide. Two European seminars and projects have been realized over the course of the past three years to foster the exchange of knowledge, methods and competences among FEIL in Europe.

This, however, is only the first start. All FEIL members conduct trainings by themselves and organise these just within their organisations. Inviting staff and volunteers from other FEIL members has just recently started again. The extent to which a pool of trainers or other forms of internal training and seminar structures are used by the FEIL members varies greatly. While Experiment Germany has an internal pool of trainers who conduct trainings for volunteers on a local and national level, other organisations have been working with external trainers to maintain their level of quality.

It is a common goal to improve the European training and seminar structures. However, this is only starting.

Looking across organisations: common threads and questionsAll four organisations rely on and prioritise training as a way to enable volunteers and staff to deliver high quality educational and exchange experiences. The differences and similarities in the way each organisa-tion structures its training point to some interesting questions.

Through training, all four umbrella organisations serve the specific needs of their national level organi-sations. As the example of Experiment shows, having shared content and programmes is a prerequisite without which developing a shared training system above the national level is not possible. EEE-YFU, EFIL and CISV all organise their trainers in supra-national ‘trainer pools’ (EFIL and EEE-YFU) or ‘regional delivery teams’ (CISV) which enable them to organise and develop their trainers, and to send the best trainers available in the region to support national organi-sations. So it is clear that supra-national training structures depend on shared content and that they have to match the national organisations’ needs. As our national and international organisations develop, questions emerge on quality assurance (e.g. trainer certification, standardisation of training materials), the integration of online resources into existing training (“blended learning”) and opening up existing trainings and training forums also to people outside our organisations. These issues were of highest interest to the Seminar participants.

Being European umbrella organisations, it should come as no big surprise that EFIL and EEE-YFU use European Union funding the most effectively to sup-port their training. For CISV International, training is a service that is offered to National Associations, and

associated costs are covered by CISV International, by participation fees and the host National Association. In general, it is clear that training is an expensive undertaking and an investment our organisations make in their volunteers and staff. The partner organisations have found different ways of paying for training using internal (organisational) as well as external resources. But questions around meeting the cost of trainings are not limited to external versus internal sources of funding, but also include how we can increase the benefits arising from investment in training, how we can clearly match the kind and amount of training offered to the need for training, and how we can use technology to achieve more through combined or blended online and in-person training. Given the experience our organisations have in delivering training, the question that some have started asking is, could training not be turned into a source of income, rather than a cost to our organisa-tions?

Follow-up action plans An intercultural NFE activity creation seminar is currently being planned: The purpose of this event is to develop new educational activities and tools based on the latest intercultural research, since many existing NFE activities are base on outdated theories. Who: c. 20 experienced trainers from all four organisa-tions. When: University on Youth and Development in Molina 2015.

Participants are also looking into opening their organisation’s trainings and international meetings for external participants from our partner organisations. An ambitious idea to be followed up was to work towards common certification of trainers and trainees.

4.Leadership and ParticipationThe definition presented at the beginning of the seminar framed ‘Leadership & Participation’ as follows: Leadership & Participation within a volunteer organisation encompasses its governance structure, strategic planning, decision making, organisational and volunteer development and the relationship between volunteers and paid staff.

How do leadership development systems work in each organisation? Content, Structure, Systems, People, and Resources

AFSAFS International is governed by a CEO and a Board of Trustees elected by individual votes of AFS organi-sations, and by co-opted individuals, which defines the Strategic priorities. At regular times a World Congress is held and several international meetings targeting specific positions within the organisations are organised with the purpose of information and consultation.

AFS national organisations have a national board and most of them delegate operations to a national office

which varies in dimensions according to the volume of participants hosted and sent. The staff/volunteer ratio in the AFS network is about 1/40.

Each national organisation has a number of local chapters. In general, local chapters are not registered organisations, but groups of volunteers that run AFS activities locally, such as recruiting exchange participants and host families, contacting local schools and organising orientations for participants. However, local chapters have their own structure which can include a local board, President, a sending co-ordinator, a hosting co-ordinator, a person in charge of school relations and an educational/training co-ordinator.

The AFS worldwide network counts more than 40,000 active volunteers.

EFILAFS organisations in Europe choose to be members of the European Federation of AFS organisations, namely the European Federation for Intercultural Learning which was founded in 1971. The EFIL General Assembly meets in person every 2 years and it consists of one representative/vote for each EFIL member. The GA defines Strategic priorities for a longerperiod, currently 2013-2020, and elects the EFIL Board which consists of no less than 5 and no more than 9 mem-bers elected for a period of two years. Their term may be renewed. The Board meets three times a year.

EFIL’s activities are run by a secretariat of 5 employees and about 2-3 interns. EFIL member organisations count about 20,000 active volunteers and they repre-sent half of the AFS worldwide network. EFIL focuses a lot on volunteer development through its activities in the field of Training and Partner Development and produced a publication about promoting and develo-ping volunteering within an organisation.

CISVCISV International adopted a new governance structure in 2013 and is now led by the Governing Board and the Secretary General. The Members of CISV International – CISV National Associations and Junior Branch – elect the Governing Board of nine Trustees. The Governing Board works closely with the

Secretary General, who is the chief executive officer of the organisation. Together they are responsible for the strategic direction and good governance of CISV International.

The Governing Board is supported by five Standing Committees of the Board: Chapter Development, Educational Programmes, Training and Quality Assurance, Conferences and Events, and Resources and Infrastructure. The International Junior Branch Team leads the Junior Branch at the International level and has a direct relationship with the Governing Board. Each of the Committees is chaired by a Trustee and includes volunteers and senior staff. Every Committee also includes a member of the International Junior Branch Team. The Committees focus on the strategic development of their focus areas and report directly to the Governing Board.A Senior Management Team oversees the day-to-day work of the organisation and works from CISV’s International Office in Newcastle.

CISV International now has three administrative Regions – Americas; Asia-Pacific; and Europe, Middle East and Africa. Each of these Regions is served by Regional Delivery Teams, which are led by specialist Regional Co-ordinators. The Regional Delivery Teams are for Chapter Development, Educational Programmes, and Training and Quality Assurance and there is a Regional Co-ordinator for Conference and Events.

This new structure is intended to offer more support, training and networking in our Regions from people who understand that Region and how things work. CISVers get to meet the people from these Teams at Regional Meetings and Regional Training Forums and can contact them directly for advice and support. You can find illustrations and more information about running CISV International here.

YFUNational YFU organisations are independently organised who work together at international level to implement high quality youth exchanges to accomplish the mission to advance intercultural understanding, mutual respect and social responsibi-lity through educational exchanges for youth, families and communities.

Representatives of national organisations from each continent make up the International Advisory Council which takes high level policy decisions and advises the network. An International Secretariat provides programme-related and centralized services to national organisations.

Each national organisation is organised slightly differently, but generally speaking, they have a board and national office who work together to carry out the work of YFU in that country. Some organisations have local leaders called Area Representatives who are the main contact-point in the field around whom local volunteering is organised. Other organisations divide

“What was significant was the vast difference in their role for paid staff and volunteers

in contrast to those within CISV. CISV has a much larger volunteer base who serve in essential roles within the organisation, whereas the partner organisations had a much smaller staff to volunteer ratio. The partner organisations were impressed with our ability to retain and train our volunteers to facilitate the work that we do. I was quite impressed with the quality and passion of their professional staff and recognized the significant benefits to having paid staff in essential roles.” Tamara Thorpe, CISV USA

their countries up into chapters to connect local volunteers in each region who provide leadership and carry out YFU work for that geographic area. Typical tasks for local volunteers include school presenta-tions, student and family recruitment, family visits, interviews and orientations, and student support.

EEE-YFUEuropean organisations came together in 1985, at the beginning of Intra-European exchanges and created European Educational Exchanges – Youth for Understanding as a membership-based organisation. Its current thirty members meet once a year at the General Meeting to take strategic and high-level policy decisions, as well as elect members of the Board.

The Board of EEE-YFU consists of seven members with three year terms. The Board itself meets twice per year in person, with online conferencing meetings in between. The Board has recently shifted from being an operational board to a more policy and strategy-oriented Board. Board members receive training themselves and a Board Development Team within the Board contributes to creating and implementing good governance practices of the group.

The Board delegates the day-to-day management of EEE-YFU to the Director and the Secretariat currently has a total of 2.4 to 2.6 full-time equivalent employees.

The staff’s work is invaluably supplemented by the dedication of many volunteers, many of whom are a part of the Pool of Representatives, the European Trainer Network, the Educational Advisory Team and the Advocacy Advisory Team.

ExperimentEvery three years at the General Assembly, all mem-bers of FEIL elect a Board consisting of a president and two vice-presidents. Together with the Director in the International Office, they are responsible for a number of different tasks, including monitoring of quality, raising the visibility of the Federation, solving issues with and among members and support research, marketing and common goals identified by the members. All of these activities need to be in accordance with the general mission. A strategic plan points out key activities for the upcoming years. The strategic plan is currently under revision.

On a national level, the composition of the governing bodies of the FEIL members vary. At Experiment Germany, a general assembly elects a board for a four year term which sets out strategies for the future. At EIL Intercultural Learning Ireland, the board is elected yearly with re-election possible.

Everyday work is conducted by the office in each member country with its staff members and with the help and support of volunteers nationwide.

Looking across organisations: common threads and questionsAll four international organisations are based on an organisational structure where members are national organisations coming together voting for their international board with the exception of AFS and YFU where Board members are also co-opted. AFS, YFU and CISV are rather centralised networks, while EIL is a more loose federation. Two of the four international organisations have a European platform which gathers their European members. CISV is the only organisation which implements a governance system based on regionalisation. Also CISV is the only organisation that went through an organisational review which resulted in significant changes in the international structure.

The four organisations vary in the staff/volunteer ratio, with AFS having the highest ratio and CISV having the lowest one, with very few staff members in an international office and a network of volunteers carrying out tasks of great responsibility.

In terms of volunteer management YFU and AFS are particularly concerned by the short cycle of volunteering within their organisation which results in high turnover. In all four organisations volunteers are motivated and empowered through trainings, but the bigger and more structured the organisation, the harder it can be for the volunteer to see their impact and contribution to decision-making at higher levels.

Follow-up action plans Action plans ranged from creating a virtual space to share information, best practices, ICT tools and plat-forms to be used for internal communication within each organisation. Also participants expressed two project ideas: a joint working group on project-based leadership, a training for camp leaders, a personal development workshop for young leaders within the four organisations in order to create a generation of volunteers working together across organisations. For fostering organisational development, participants suggested to advertise internships available in each other organisations to their volunteers.

5.Advocacy and PartnershipsAdvocacy is about communicating the organisation’s work and needs to policy makers and society in order to create changes which favourably contribute to the organisation’s mission. Partnerships are relations with other stakeholders aimed at better pursuing the organisation’s mission, either through projects or advocacy actions.

EFILEFIL has been involved in advocacy towards the European institutions since its foundation in 1971. Advocacy is one of the 5 areas of activity of EFIL. Decisions and actions in the field of advocacy – based on the Strategic priorities approved by the Members- are delegated by the Board to the Secretariat where an Advocacy Co-ordinator is employed.

The main focus of EFIL’s advocacy efforts is on Intercultural Learning and its links with the wider field of Global Education, with additional topics: Active Citizenship and Volunteering. Key stra-tegy is to stay up to date with European developments in these fields and influence decisions in the interest of the Federation, through participation in public consultations, submitting positions on legal docu-ments and contributing to the EU Structured Dialogue with young people on youth policy. More operational matters that create the right conditions for the former include recognition of study periods abroad, visa issues regarding youth mobility, recognition of non-formal learning and volunteering, providing funding for projects involving youth organisations. More on EFIL advocacy can be found here: http://www.efil.afs.org/advocacy/

EFIL takes part in several relevant stakeholder groups and platforms. EFIL’s main external partners are the European Youth Forum (YFJ) and the European Civil Society Platform on Lifelong Learning (EUCIS-LLL). EFIL is also a member of the Civil Society Platform for Multilingualism and has participatory status in the INGO Conference of the Council of Europe. EFIL meets regularly with organisations member of the

European Youth Forum which share the same mission of promoting intercultural understanding and non-formal education. EFIL also meets every year with the National Platforms of exchange organisations of countries they are present (i.e. AJA in Germany, Intermundo in Switzerland).

Structures:

q European Pool of Representatives (EPOR): a group of selected AFSers who represent EFIL at external events and in Platforms.

q group of national EFIL Advocacy Liaison Persons: the persons appointed by each EFIL member organisation to liaise with EFIL regarding national advocacy.

q AFS EuroNet group: an initiative that connects AFS returnees based in Brussels and working in European institutions and other, to provide an additional link for EFIL with the European institutions

AFSAFS International has consultative status at UN and UNESCO and has relations with the UN Alliance of Civilisations. AFS International attends some of the events organised by these institutions with the aim of profiling AFS as an educational institution and an expert in Intercultural Learning.

CISVSince its beginning, CISV has worked in co-operation with like-minded organisations for the purpose of educational research, national, regional and

international relations, and, increasingly, to develop our programmes and activities. CISV International is a UNESCO partner Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), holds participatory status with the Council of Europe, and is a candidate member of the European Youth Forum.

CISV International has enjoyed research partnerships with Birkbeck College (UK), Newcastle University (UK), University of Modena (Italy), Ohio University (USA) and University of Cincinnati (USA). CISV International works closely with Peace One Day to support the annual international Peace Day.

CISV member associations and their Chapters work in partnership with a wide variety of like-minded national and local organisations around the world. Read more about CISV’s partnerships at http://www.cisv.org/about-us/our-partners/

EEE-YFUEEE-YFU has been involved in advocacy towards the European institutions since its foundation in 1985 and it continues to be one of EEE-YFU’s main working areas.

EEE-YFU promotes mobility, intercultural learning and non-formal education. EEE-YFU, through its staff and volunteers, are present and active in the European youth work field on these topics and also monitor po-licy related to youth exchanges. It also contributes to consultations, participates in EU Structured Dialogue and provides information to Member Organisations. Currently, EEE-YFU’s main priorities include streng-

thening the capacity of its Member Organisations in the field of advocacy. EEE-YFU also advocates for better legal and administrative conditions for the organisation of long-term youth exchanges, including visa issues, recognition of the formal and non-formal learning linked to a year aboard as well as structural and project funding for youth organisations. EEE-YFU takes part in several relevant stakeholder groups and platforms. EEE-YFU main external partners are the European Youth Forum (YFJ) and the European Civil Society Platform on Lifelong Learning (EUCIS-LLL). EEE-YFU is also a member of the Civil Society Platform for Multilingualism and meets regularly with organisations member of the European Youth Forum which share the same mission of promoting intercultural understanding and non-formal educa-tion. EEE-YFU works with EFIL meeting every year with the European and National Exchange Platforms of exchange organisations.

Structures:

q Pool of Representatives (PoR): a group of volunteers were represent EEE-YFU and external European events and in platforms

q Advocacy Advisory Team: a group of highly experienced volunteers who support the strategic development of EEE-YFU’s advo-cacy work

q Advocacy Focal Points: national level representatives who are the contact point between European and national level advocacy work

“CISV members generally do not have a good understanding of what advocacy is. It was discussed that CISV

as a non-political organisation frequently feels uncomfortable with advocacy, and therefore members believe we should not do it. Members of the thread from the other organisations explained how they utilised advocacy, for example with regard to long-term visas or funding. Much of this work was undertaken through the European Youth Forum and was done by members of paid staff.” Jessica, CISV Great Britain

“So now I think I can explain to my organisation why we should advocate for our mission […] especially inside

the European Union. As we are actually working a lot with the EU and inside the EVS program it is really important to us to advocate for that. Because otherwise we will not have any funding from the EU so now I understand.” Neus, AIPC Pandora

ExperimentFor many decades ever since the Federation of the Experiment in International Living (FEIL) was founded, a European Office co-ordinated all efforts by the by then many organisations affiliated with FEIL in Europe. Since the 1990s the number of European orga-nisations affiliated with FEIL has been in decline and now remains constant, but low, with seven (including Turkey) since 2007. There, therefore, is no co-ordina-ting body in Europe and all advocacy activities are either done by the International Office, located in Brattleboro, Vermont or by the organisations them-selves. The advocacy activities of the International Office are primarily focused on the international level such as UN, WYSE (World Youth Student Travel and Exchange Confederation) and others. FEIL has a consultative status with ECOSOC, the Council of Europe and is UN Peace Messenger since 1989.

Each member organisation is in addition affiliated with different national advocacy and lobby bodies. – such as AJA, the umbrella organisation of non-profit youth exchange organisations in Germany, for Experiment Germany.

As each member is free to choose which partner to work with – as long as the programme and the partnership meets the commonly agreed upon quality standards – partnerships among the different European FEIL members are manifold and include many different partners in many different pro-grammes.

Looking across organisations: common threads and questionsAll four organisations are members of the INGO Conference of the Council of Europe and have relations with different international governmental organisations. All four organisations try and build partnerships with like-minded organisations for specific projects. However, there are considerable dif-ferences among the four organisations when it comes to actively advocating their mission and values at national and European level. ‘Actively advocating’ by following legislative processes and trying to influence them through various means can be considered too ‘political’ for non-political organisations. Those of the four organisations that are strong in advocacy, i.e. EFIL and EEE-YFU, have only a strong focus on this topic within their strategic priorities, a European office with paid staff responsible for this area, and membership in European advocacy platforms where they can join forces with like-minded organisations to have a bigger voice towards policy makers. This has resulted internally in the creation of structures for advocacy and externally in the fact that they are recognised stakeholders by institutions such as the European Union.

While at European level, advocacy might be a strong point for two of the four organisations, all four struggle, to some extent, to co-ordinate between the international and national/local levels. Advocacy is often not a priority for national organisations since it is not part of their core activity, which are rather exchange programmes and local projects. National/local organisations sometimes lack understanding of what advocacy is and are discouraged by the fact that

it takes a lot of time before brin-ging results. One way to develop capacity in the field of advocacy at the national level is by joining forces in formal/informal national platforms that gather organisations with similar goals and create a common strategy. This has been proved to function especially well in Switzerland and Germany, and to a lesser extent in France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. YFU, AFS and Experiment organisations are most often part of these national platforms. However, a challenge in advocacy is to catch the political momentum for the values promoted by the organisa-

tion: at times political priorities can be very different from the organisation’s advocacy goals.

All four organisations see great potential in creating partnerships with like-minded organisations for advocacy, and especially for projects and they all see the great risk of ‘staying within the organi-sational bubble’. However, when creating partnerships, it is impor-tant to be able to communicate the organisation’s mission clearly and have a recognizable brand as an international network.

Follow-up action plans Action plans ranged from co-operation among organisations at local, national and international level. Regarding Advocacy, at national level participants suggest to make the organisations connect also outside Europe, namely in the Asia Pacific and Americas. Also participants suggested to co-operate with one another for advocacy efforts at national level and join existing advocacy platforms at national level.At international level, EEE-YFU and EFIL discussed the possibility of applying for European funding to support a training for their members on how to conduct advocacy at national level. Also, the same organisations discussed the possibility of drafting together policy briefings for their members on topics where European legislation is having an impact on their operations at national level. It was also considered that in order to better advocate, research on the impact of our programmes is needed, therefore the idea of a database of existing research projects and initiating joint research projects have been discussed.

Regarding partnerships, on the local and national levels, parti-cipants suggested to co-operate by organising joint trainings on intercultural communication.

CISV and AFS participants dis-cussed the possibility of inviting each other to their Intercultural Dialogue Day and Peace One Day.

6.Development of Educational ResourcesDuring the seminar, participants agreed on a working definition of what we mean by training: “Internal and external experienced people, audio, visual and/or written materials and methods that develop and support organisations towards achieving their goals and vision”.

How educational resources development works in each organisation: Content, Structure, Systems, People, and Resources

AFS and EFILAFS International develops general educational materials on Intercultural Learning which are acces-sible to AFS staff and volunteers through the intranet called AFS Global where there is also the AFS World Café – the ICL Library to share resources. Each inde-pendent AFS organisation develops its own materials and manuals – especially through the work of their volunteers, including training sessions for different target groups and non-formal education activities for exchange programme participants. These are shared by each AFS organisation with their volunteers through an intranet. Within AFS there is a strict policy on copyright and sharing of educational materials, therefore AFS Educational resources are not to be found online. The public ones available are shared by AFS International and EFIL on their websites.In particular AFS International shares educational material on the webpage ‘Intercultural Learning for friends of AFS’ where you can find AFS Educational Goals and the AFS orientation framework. AFS

International also publishes an Intercultural Link newsletter and the AFS ICL Blog. All research related to AFS programmes can be found here.

EFIL has produced educational material for Intercultural Dialogue Day, to learn about the Balkan countries through the T(E)IST the Balkans project, and to learn more about intercultural learning through the series of videos ‘When Cultures Interact’. Some other educational publications are available in the form of reports of projects. When it comes to research, together with AFS International EFIL takes part in the biennial Forum on Intercultural Learning & Exchange organised by Fondazione Intercultura.

EXPERIMENTEducational Resources are developed and maintained by each FEIL member organisation based on the needs and programme diversity each organisation has and in accordance with internationally agreed quality standards. Depending on the level of volunteer enga-gement and the size of the organisation, volunteers do some or most of the work. Volunteers also conduct some or all training sessions for all target groups and non-formal education activities for exchange programme participants. How these materials are kept up to date and how they are distributed among staff and volunteers depends on the respective organisational culture and policy of each national organisation. There is a movement to a more collec-tive use of common materials for certain areas and certain programmes. These activities are, however, only starting and will not be ready for some years. The International Office has also compiled resources.

CISVAt the heart of CISV’s approach to peace education is experiential learning or, in simple words, learning by doing. To support experiential learning, CISV volunteers develop and publish educational activities. A wide range of educational activities, designed for age groups from 11 years of age and older, can be found here: http://www.cisv.org/resources/running-or-taking-part-in-educational-programmes/ed-activities/

The Passport is CISV’s best known and much-used resource, which covers CISV’s educational principles and approach in a concise and accessible manner. It is available here: http://www.cisv.org/assets/T-03_The_Passport

The Big Education Guide, known as “Big Ed”, is CISV’s more comprehensive guide to peace education. It explains CISV’s four peace education content areas

(Sustainable Development, Human Rights, Diversity, Conflict and Resolution), educational evaluation using the Attitudes, Skills and Knowledge (ASK) Framework, and more. Big Ed is available here: http://www.cisv.org/assets/T-02_Big_Education_Guide

YFU and EEE-YFUInternationally, YFU organisations agree to work according to the International Basic Standards, which outline the Educational Goals and educational approach of YFU programmes. In turn, an orientations framework (called the LOOP) provides learning objectives for each of the typical orientations that are organised, for families and exchange participants. Each national organisation then works to develop its own content for orientations for programme partici-pants, based on the goals that are set internationally. As can be imagined, going from theory (internatio-nally) to practice (locally) can be a challenge, and some of EEE-YFU educational activities have often involved supporting this process of training volunteers to consistently deliver high quality orientations according to the YFU educational approach.

In Europe, many national organisations run a programme developed by EEE-YFU in the ‘90s called Coloured Glasses which is an intercultural learning programme for the school setting. Typically, organisations have special teams of volunteers (and sometimes foreign interns) who work with children in schools. EEE-YFU continues to support this work, notably through EVS grants (e.g. an international project in 2011-2013 saw 10,000 kids participate in Glasses Workshops on 3 continents) and in 2015 is helping to roll out Coloured Glasses in French-speaking countries and regions.

Motivating volunteers and organisational theory – Two external points of viewDr. Gareth Lloyd (Institute of Volunteering research; http://www.ivr.org.uk/) and Christian Link (Organisational Development consultant and trainer) shared their experiences with seminar participants.

Gareth drew on research results to highlight the huge variety of people and what they actually do, hidden under the label “volunteers”. So how can we make generalisations about how best to motivate them?

Christian suggested another approach by using organisational theory. Put simply, Christian explained why old fashioned models of orga-nisations focusing on structures, outputs and formal rules were insufficient to understand and manage organisations. We have to, in order to work effectively in and across organisations, also understand organisations as made up of the “soft stuff” of personal relationships, people’s identities, and material as well as immaterial rewards.

Keeping these key factors in mind gives us a good tool to answer the challenging and ever-urgent question: How can we motivate the volunteers on whose work we depend?

Looking across organisations: common threads and questionsCISV makes all educational materials publicly available, highlighting a fundamental difference with regard to the other three organisations. This may partly be attributed to the underlying mission of each organisation. Besides this difference, all organisations rely heavily on their experienced volunteers and former participants to develop and maintain educatio-nal resources. These processes are mainly conducted within each organisation on a national stage to fulfil the individual and national approaches and needs. CISV takes a different approach, as the development of material is co-ordinated by the international office and materials produced are used commonly among national organisations. While each organisation certainly has its own specific topics and perspectives on some topics to be trained in non-formal education, focusing on experiential learning methods, it is obvious in the materials and in the discussions held during the seminar that many methods and materials are used across organisations (see also section 3 “trai-ning”). EEE-YFU, EFIL and Experiment organisations also look across boarders and within their umbrella organisations in different intensities. In CISV, this is already the case and there is a lot of material being used in all CISV organisations.

New technological developments – mainly blended learning and the accessibility of materials online – have enabled all four organisations to look into more ways of sharing educational material with other national organisations in partnering countries. The availability of materials online has started a processes in all organisations to explore more possibilities, new methods of learning and how to enable more volunteers to actively engage in the development of new materials.

Follow-up action plans The action plans developed reflect the move towards more sharing across boarders and organisations. A platform to share material and educational resources was set up. In addition it was agreed upon to make big national (or organisational) events known to which trainers, volunteers and staff of the three other organisation could be invited to. To take the idea of sharing materials a step further, a pilot project in Denmark was created to explore ways and means to develop materials together.

7.Conclusion - Possible future directionsThis seminar envisioned bringing experienced staff and volunteers from all four networks together in a unique and singular way. Enabling them to find out about each other’s organisations, their structures and their ways of achieving their goals, was a personal benefit each participant had outside of the concrete projects for the future.

“I have made many good contacts to international volunteers here and I think that is my next step in voluntee-

ring.” Sallamaari AFS Finland

“I think there are a lot of awesome people around here and a lot of ideas that I find very inspiring.”

Simon, AFS Switzerland

Where might this partnership take us?This partnership will for sure take us to an increased participation to each other’s events and projects, at international, national and local levels. “Think about the synergies they can make together with others who have similar goals and a similar mission. Maybe a good chance for the future and I hope that we will work together in the future.” Dagmar, CISV Austria. This partnership might take us to tackle together major current issues in the field of intercultural and global citizenship education through experiential learning which were tackled in the Open space.

These include:

q how to assess intercultural competences q how to keep our educational materials up

to date q the impact and potential of social media in

the running of our exchange programmes q how our programmes go beyond the

concept of national culture in today’s multicultural society

q how we collect all existing research in the field, transfer it to practice and vice versa

q how we avoid unequal power relations and westernisation when talking about intercul-tural and global citizenship education

“Really get down to the nitty-gritty of what we all have in common, what we are all struggling with, how we can

develop ourselves and work together to improve all 4 organisations and not just one at a time.” Daisy, CISV USA

What are major learning points at a meta level for the partnership?One of the learning points is that we found out what we have in common, we are international organi-sations that were born between 100 and 60 years ago, all resulting as a call for peace and intercultural understanding after the World Wars.

“For me it was really nice to get to meet other people from different organi-sations and just to realize we are all

working together for the same goal. That was really nice.” Sara, CISV Portugal

We all promote intercultural learning which includes exchanges and mobility between countries, and the concept of being hosted in a host family for an immer-sive stay in a different culture. We all promote global citizenship though we might call it differently: active citizenship, social responsibility, global awareness… We all use the method of experiential learning as the educational base of our programmes.

“I see that spirit in all the participants that have been involved in this so I can find that it’s a really big opportunity

for our organisations to grow and make a better world.” Herman, YFU Uruguay

Most of our organisations have been linked with research in the field of our practice.

We all do what we do in common in different ways, and with very different governance structures: from a very tight network such as CISV to a much looser one such as the Federation EIL. In order to further co-ope-rate together we need to be sensitive to each other’s organisational cultures and realities.

“I never get to think about how I do things unless somebody else tells me how they do it and I can compare it and

reflect on it.” Katrin, Experiment Germany

CISV focuses more on finding similarities within diverse groups in order to work together, while AFS, YFU and Experiment in International Living, based on the concept of exchange between two cultures, start from a deep understanding of differences and similarities, to then work together. We can learn from each other on this.

“I really like that we focused on getting to some concrete action planning so that we can actually do make some

changes and start co-operating to improve all of our work.” Sara, EEE-YFU

We should also use this partnership to better unders-tand what each other’s strengths and weaknesses are and join forces to have a bigger impact in fields where we struggle and do not compete.

“This seminar is about sharing between organisations that have a common goal and organisations that identified

that they can learn from each other on four specific topics. And those topics are: Training, Educational Resources, Advocacy and Partnership and Leadership and Participation.” Elisa, EFIL

“As a volunteer working for these kinds of organisations you need a high iden-tification with your own organisation.

Bringing together all those organisations the felt diversity is not there. We basically have the same kind of spirit and we have the same kind of aims that bring us toge-ther.” Kai, CISV Germany/AFS Germany

ONLINE RESOURCESCISVHomepage: www.cisv.org Education: Educational activities, designed for age groups from 11 years of age and older: http://www.cisv.org/resources/running-or-taking-part-in-educa-tional-programmes/ed-activities/; Passport is CISV’s best known and much-used resource, which covers CISV’s educational principles and approach in a concise and accessible manner: http://www.cisv.org/assets/T-03_The_Passport; the Big Education Guide, known as “Big Ed”, is CISV’s more comprehensive guide to peace education: http://www.cisv.org/assets/T-02_Big_Education_Guide

Training: CISV publishes all of its official training documents and materials online at: http://www.cisv.org/resources/training/Partners: http://www.cisv.org/about-us/our-partners/Research: http://www.cisv.org/cisv-education/research/ Governance: http://www.cisv.org/resources/running-cisv-international/a-new-way-of-working/

Federation EILEducational Resources: http://federationeil.org/resources/ Mission statement: http://federationeil.org/who-we-are/worldwide-experiment/about-federation-eil/Governing Board: http://federationeil.org/who-we-are/worldwide-experiment/governance/

EFIL European Federation for Intercultural LearningBoard of Directors: http://www.efil.afs.org/about-efil/key-contacts/board-of-directors/Strategic priorities: http://www.efil.afs.org/about-efil/priorities/Volunteer development: http://www.efil.afs.org/documents/site_14/category_141/PromotingDevelopingVolunteering.pdf?1287649882Advocacy: http://www.efil.afs.org/advocacy/EFIL Academy: http://www.efil.afs.org/academy/Volunteer Summer Summit: http://www.efil.afs.org/

projects/VSS/AFS summer academies: http://summeracademy-istanbul.org/http://summeracademy-malaysia.org/http://www.summeracademy-karlsruhe.org/http://www.summeracademy-brazil.org/ICLink Learning program: http://www.afs.org/afs-intercultural-link/learning-program/Intercultural Dialogue Day: http://www.efil.afs.org/projects/idd/ and http://www.efil.afs.org/voice/other_publications/idd-booklets/ Reports of the Forum on Intercultural Learning & Exchange: http://www.efil.afs.org/projects/FILE/When Cultures Interact (videos): http://www.efil.afs.org/projects/other-projects/when-cultures-interact/T(E)IST the Balkans- Educational materials to learn about the Balkan countries: http://www.efil.afs.org/teist/Other Educational publications: http://www.efil.afs.org/voice/other_publications/educational-publica-tions/

AFSBoard of Trustees: http://www.afs.org/about/board-of-trustees/Strategic priorities: http://www.afs.org/about/about-afs/AFS Educational goals: http://www.afs.org/documents/site_15/category_597/AFS_Educational_Goals_-_2013.pdfAFS orientation framework: file:///C:/Users/eb/Downloads/ICL-for-Friends-of-AFS_AFS-Orientation-Framework2011.pdfIntercultural Link newsletter http://www.afs.org/news-and-events/afs-publications/icl-newsletters/AFS ICL Blog: http://www.afs.org/blog/icl/Intercultural Learning for friends of AFS http://www.afs.org/afs-intercultural-link/icl-for-friends/Research on AFS programmes: http://www.afs.org/afs-and-intercultural-learning/research/

Other relevant organisationsEuropean Youth Forum (YFJ) European Civil Society Platform on Lifelong Learning (EUCIS-LLL)Institute of Volunteering research: http://www.ivr.org.uk/

seminar on intercultural and global citizenship...

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