8th Volunteering Summer School

A community of volunteers and organizations gathered again under the subject of knowledge, innovation and response to global challenges in volunteering   

The Social Innovation Centre of the Eugénio de Almeida Foundation received more than 130 people in the eighth edition of the Volunteering Summer School (EVV), an initiative that took place on 6 and 7 July, which was an added value for entities, technicians and volunteers, to raise new knowledge and new ways of acting and encouraging cohesion and strengthening of ties in the national volunteering community.

The opening session was attended by Maria do Céu Ramos, Executive Director of the Eugénio de Almeida Foundation, Eugénio Fonseca, President of the Portuguese Confederation of Volunteering, Carla Ventura, Vice-President of the António Sérgio Cooperative for Social Economy, Gabriella Cívico, Director of the Centre for European Volunteering and Sónia Fernandes, representative of the International Association for Volunteer Effort.

At the same time, the Exhibition of Volunteering Projects was inaugurated, with the participation of 19 organisations promoting volunteering, from various parts of the country and from different thematic areas.

The interventions included more than a dozen speakers from various national organisations with relevant intervention in the field of volunteering and international organisations, such as Vitor Ventosa, professor at the University of Salamanca, with a vast research work on Didactics of Social Intervention and Sociocultural Animation.

With the aim of promoting meeting, debate and reflection on voluntary action, good practices were shared from different Volunteer Banks, which in this initiative shared the diversity of their interventions in the municipalities of Lisbon, Santarém and Torres Vedras, and there was also time for a presentation by Entrajuda.

The Volunteering Summer School also had the collaboration of several local organisations such as Refood, the Real Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Saúde and Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Évora, which provided to the participants, especially volunteers, a visit to get to know volunteering projects.

In a partnership with the Centre for European Voluntary Service, an innovative training session on Inclusive Volunteering was held for the first time in Portugal, at a time when more than ever we need to build bridges for the integration of diverse communities and people in volunteering.

According to Henrique Sim-Sim, "it was very important to bring together again in the Summer School a group of leaders of reference entities in Portugal, contributing to a sharing based on proximity. The pandemic has changed a lot of the way we relate to each other and the Volunteering Summer School was the first national face-to-face event on this subject which is so dear to us. About 130 technicians and volunteers participated, and this is very relevant in the current context. We are motivated to continue developing our work for the qualification of volunteering in Portugal, now with new partnerships and synergies created."

The 1st Volunteering Summer School took place in 2010, had a few years of interregnum, and has now resumed after the pandemic, seeking each year, to offer a differentiated programme.

With more than a dozen years, the Volunteering Summer School is one of the reference events for Volunteering in Portugal, being a unique opportunity to strengthen the network of contacts in the area of volunteering, with several moments of conviviality and interaction between participants, who had the opportunity to handle a giant marionette, used in the most recent project of awareness of volunteering, the Volunteering Bug, " O Bichinho do Voluntariado".

More information and inscriptions through:

www.fea.pt/banco-voluntariado

bancodevoluntariado@fea.pt

More information and inscriptions through:

www.fea.pt/banco-voluntariado

bancodevoluntariado@fea.pt