The EU Aid Volunteers (EUAV) was an initiative by the European Union to promote citizens’ volunteerism in humanitarian contexts.

It existed from 2015 to 2021. The Caritas network implemented several projects under this initiative, both for technical assistance and capacity building − to raise organisational standards and prepare for the sending and hosting of volunteers − and for the deployment of volunteers.

From 2020 to 2022, Caritas Europa led a capacity-building project with eight of its member organisations: the national Caritas of Armenia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Romania Serbia and Ukraine. This two-and-a-half-year project, entitled ‘Accompaniment and Building Capacities in EUAV’ or ABC-EUAV in short, started in February 2020 and ended in May 2022. It built on the predecessor TEACH project.

The ABC-EUAV project was structured around three objectives:

1. Increase knowledge and capacity of the partner organisations to actively participate in EU Aid Volunteer projects;
2. Improve the partners’ capacities in the field of disaster risk reduction (DRR) and organisational preparedness to respond to emergencies;
3. Further develop partners’ capacities in the field of volunteer management and safeguarding.

Different activities were undertaken to achieve these objectives. Firstly, the EU Aid Volunteer initiative was promoted so that partners could apply to be certified as a volunteer ‘sending’ or ‘hosting organisation’. By the end of the project, eight out of nine persons had received this certification. However, due to Covid-19 pandemic, the partners were never able to send or deploy EU Aid Volunteers, as the European Commission never restarted the EUAV activities that had been put on hold in spring 2020 when the coronavirus hit Europe.

For the second objective, the project extended and complemented existing efforts in the Caritas network. These included workshops and trainings on organisational emergency preparedness and on community-managed DRR, but also on accountability and learning, and how to communicate with the public during an emergency. By the end of the ABC-EUAV project, partners adopted emergency preparedness plans and had developed new online courses such as the Disaster Risks eLearning for children, available in five languages, or an online introduction to Caritas for new volunteers.

Finally, some organisations already had important skills in volunteer management. These skills were spread to the other partners through a training on quality volunteer management and a workshop on psychosocial and trauma support. In order to capitalise on past and other EU Aid Volunteer projects that were going on at the time, ABC-EUAV did not intend to develop any new material on volunteer management or safeguarding but to disseminate, translate and rollout existing resources.

All materials developed by the ABC-EUAV project are available on the Caritas Europa space on Baobab. To request these materials, you can also contact Charel Krieps ckrieps@caritas.eu.

During the period in which the EUAV initiative existed, the Caritas network was involved in several projects. PEOPLE and RECHANGE were capacity-building projects between European and African Caritas organisations. PEACH and PEACH2 were capacity-building projects between European and Asian Caritas organisations. REACH and SCORE were projects deploying volunteers outside of the EU. All projects complemented and built on each other. Caritas continues its effort in European volunteering by being an active actor in the European Solidarity Corps.

Articles about the ABC-EUAV project:

• Caritas Ukraine holds ABC-EUAV kick-off meeting, March 2020
• Volunteer management training, June 2020
• Caritas Ukraine getting ready to host volunteers, October 2020
• Caritas training on DRR and emergency preparedness, November 2020
• The joy of encounter and learning together, March 2022
• Capacity building in the midst of COVID and war, May 2022