Author:
Giuseppe De Stefano
Short summary:
The European Union, in its mission to foster an active international citizenship, has been funding programs to allow young individuals with the opportunity to have working and studying experiences across the member states. The tool to achieve this goal is to select meaningful projects offered by valid organisations. This year Green Steps became a certified host organisation for an Erasmus + project and for the ESC volunteers.
A couple of months ago, October 2021, Green Steps was invited to join the 5th edition of the Erasmus Days, a three-day celebration of the Erasmus + program. It was, in fact, the first year for our organisation to be officially listed by the European Union as a host organization for young people willing to engage in meaningful activities.
what is erasmus +
Erasmus+ is a program financed by the European Commission to support education, training, youth, and sport in Europe.
Thanks to this program, young Europeans aged between 18 and 30 years can access grants to support them and join organizations across the Member States of the EU to fulfill the targets of the program itself, such as promoting inclusion and diversity, enforcing the European Digital Education Action Plan, and fighting against the climate change.
Organisations, institutions, bodies or groups that organise eligible activities are the main tool allowing the Erasmus + program to reach those young individuals who are its target population. Green Steps was selected as eligible to host activities outside formal education and training as the main organiser and funder of the Hoopoe Summit (the first edition took place in Summer 2021).
Volunteering for Green Steps
Our commitment does not stop with the Hoopoe Summit.
Our mission is to raise awareness and produce a positive impact by providing all-year-long a rich offer of environmental education activities aimed at all ages and with special attention toward children.
In Europe, Green Steps is registered as a non-profit organisation and was considered eligible to access a pool of motivated young people between 18 and 30 years old on the ESC portal.
what is esc
ESC stands for European Solidarity Corps, and it is another program from the EU that supports young people looking for an inspiring and empowering experience to get the chance and be involved in projects that benefit communities while developing new skills.
While the Erasmus+ program provides youth exchanges, training courses, mobility projects for youth workers, scholarships for students to study abroad and grants for scientific work, the European Solidarity Corps program focuses primarily on short and long-term volunteering projects.
Areas of interest range from helping the disadvantaged to humanitarian aid, as well as contributing to the health and environmental action across the EU and beyond. The program also addresses organisations active in the solidarity sector looking to involve young people in their activities.
As we believe in non-formal education, Green Steps offers volunteers from the ESC pool of talents to lead activities by Nature Guides’ side in our local activities in St.Pölten, and join training to start their journey as environmental educators.
We welcomed our first volunteer in June 2021: looking forward to the next one.
Check out ESC official page and Green Steps’ ESC profile.
