Within the project “Volunteer Management from A to Z”, Cluj-Napoca Volunteer Center (CNVC) aims to raise the capacity of 16 Romanian NGO’s by professionalizing their volunteer management system. The project is offering training activities, individualized consultancy, job shadowing meetings in experienced NGO’s in involving volunteers, for 16 NGO’s in Romania.
The “No hate speech” campaign, initiated by the European Council, gives the proper frame for the 16 NGO’s to put in practice concepts and good practices tested throughout the project, by organizing public events, focused on promoting tolerance and the fight against hate speech or any other type of discrimination.
According to a study done by the Romanian Institute for Strategy and Evaluation (IRES) in November 2012, 79,7% of Romanians would not want to have homosexual persons as neighbors, 51,4% would not want to have Rroma people leaving close by and 41,6% would prefer not to leave among people with HIV. The same study shows that 1 in 10 Romanians would prefer not to have immigrant neighbors, persons affiliated to other religions or unmarried couples. The result of these types of attitudes are often transformed in lack of tolerance towards the mentioned target groups that will be marginalized and therefore be affected negatively.
The project initiated by CNVC starts from the idea that the Romanian NGO’s that involve volunteers in their work are relevant actors that can contribute in the development of the social capital and education, because volunteering at it’s base represents a type of nonformal education with positive impact on both personal and professional development of the volunteers. Therefore the organizations that involve volunteers in their activity represent a education source among the citizens no matter what field they are working in.
Last but not least, the project is addressing directly the volunteer management aspect through an innovating method: 3 debate theater performances on the topic of discrimination within the volunteering field.
The “Volunteer management from A to Z” project is taking place from April 2014 until march 2015 and it is financed through SEE Grants 2009-2014 , by NGO Fund in Romania with a total amount of 34 942 euro. Cluj-Napoca Volunteer Center’s partners within the project are Pro Vobis – Centrul National de Resurse pentru Voluntariat and IOGT Tippetue Norway.
For official information regarding the EEA grants you can check www.eeagrants.org.
