As practised at Ananda Gaorii, Sieben Linden

When choosing personal projects, it might restrict Volunteers’ ability to follow their creativity if there is no funding for them.

What is it/ How do you do it?
There are a few different funding schemes which can provide a theme or prompt to help Personal Project ideas to develop and, crucially, some useful finances to pursue it. 

One such funding stream is the EU Solidarity Project which supports young people in a region to design and deliver a project that benefits and enriches their community:  

For example, via funding through a Solidarity Project in Ananda Gaorii, a bee keeping site was build and a local bee keeper held courses to pass on the knowledge.

Such a project could also include Biodiversity Information Boards as they were created in Sieben Linden, alongside a demonstrational Bee-hive, with infographics showing what our Supermarkets would look like if we didn’t have bees. These boards were durable, attractive and informative to visitors and the Volunteers learned physical craft skills, digital design and bee-keeping while implementing the project. 

This is just one example, and the funded project content can be tailored according to Volunteers’ interests.

What is important is that the Volunteers feel empowered and gain experience while also adding value to the community they live in.

Guidelines:

• The applications have to be written by the young people
• There are online trainings delivered by NAs on how to support young people in developing Solidarity Projects. 
• At the time of writing, this ESC funding scheme can financially support a group of 5+ local young people with €500 per month for up to 12 months.
  
  

Check with your National Agency (NA) for funding deadlines for these Solidarity Project applications.

Pluses:

• Supporting Volunteers to live out their potential
• Financially assisting in the creation and delivery of projects
• Mutually benefitting Volunteers, young people and the communities they are based in
• This scheme can also bring ESC Volunteers together with local youth as it is not limited to ESC Volunteers on a project
  
  

Minuses:

• The timings of the application deadlines can be challenging – the period for the young people  to come up with ideas can be limited by the timeline requirements 
  e.g. if ESC Volunteers arrive within one month of the next application deadline, it is tricky for them to come up with an idea that could be of use to their community in the months ahead when they haven’t yet settled in and got to know what would be most mutually beneficial.
• Ensuring your organisation has the time and capacity for the supervision and coordination of this additional project
• Identifying young people in the community who would be keen to participate
• The capacity to spend time co writing the application with the young people.
• Having enough of the ESC Volunteers interested

What is Needed:

• Someone to lead on writing the funding application
• A Supervisor/Project Coordinator