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What was your magic moment in 2022 regarding supporting a volunteer?

What was your main take away about/around mentoring in 2022?

What would you like to focus on in 2023 regarding your personal/professional development as a support person for volunteers?

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Looking back at wonderful moments of 2022 around mentoring experience

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Facilitating the learning process of volunteers

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Facilitating the learning process of volunteers

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Supporting volunteers in their local/cultural integration

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Supporting volunteers in their local/cultural integration

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Presentation slides, discussion results & resources

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Presentation slides, discussion results & resources

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Spotlight ON Mentoring Practices [24.11.2022]

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Supporting volunteers in their local/cultural integration

Facilitating learning and

Troubleshooting (including conflict mediation).

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Tool 2: Wellbeing of Volunteers ["clover of wellbeing"]

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Tool 2: Wellbeing of Volunteers ["clover of wellbeing"]

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Tool 2: Wellbeing of Coordinators & Mentors ["clover of wellbeing"]

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Tool 2: Wellbeing of Coordinators & Mentors ["clover of wellbeing"]

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Tool 1: Wellbeing at ESC projects ["wellbeing wheel"]

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Tool 1: Wellbeing at ESC projects ["wellbeing wheel"]

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Mental Health and Wellbeing in Volunteering Projects [slides]

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Mental Health and Wellbeing in Volunteering Projects [slides]

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PERMA Model

Clover of Wellbeing

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Mental Health and Wellbeing in Volunteering Projects

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Mental Health and Wellbeing in Volunteering Projects

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Eliza Zadłużna - trainer and coach in the field of communication, resilience, mental wellness, coaching, creativity and intercultural education - introduced two tools that allow us to assess volunteering projects through the lens of various aspects of mental health and wellbeing as well as how to work on these aspects with volunteers or ourselves as mentors or project organisers.

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Recruiting and maintaining volunteers [ppt]

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Recruiting and maintaining volunteers [ppt]

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Ways to recruit & maintain volunteers motivated & engaged throughout the project cycle with Onoriu Raul Dan.

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The recruiting process: Recommendations & tips

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The recruiting process: Recommendations & tips

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If you address this topic with volunteers, especially if you work with volunteers from Ukraine and Russia, but also from related regions, it is very important to navigate the various emotions. There are a lot of resources that can support this, like Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart or various card sets that help sharing one’s own feelings. Dagna introduced us to metaphors and visual language. Metaphors are stories that relate to a specific language, context and culture. Those stories hold resources and possible solutions for difficult situations, they provide guidance.  Visual language as it is represented in various cards can help volunteers express and share their emotions. Sometimes it is good to ask not only how people feel right now, but also how they would like to feel in the future. This allows you to create a perspective to go for.

Here are some great resources to facilitate difficult conversations:

Colours of feelings and needs, a set of 160 illustrations representing 40 feelings in 4 different painting styles. And 96 illustrations of needs in digital design.

Cope cards, a card set for creating community and sharing communication

And please check out also the mini publication on this topic:

How to talk about war. Facilitating learning in the face of crisis by Dagna Gmitrowicz, Marta Brzezińska-Hubert, Michael Kimmig. SALTO-Toolbox

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“We are all resourceful. Maybe we don’t have access to them.”

Dagna Gmitrowicz

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How to talk about war and peace. Mentor's Toolbox

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How to talk about war and peace. Mentor's Toolbox

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MuC MeetUP #5 WarPeace Toolbox [Andreea Buzek]

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Develop your awareness and competences to support learning processes within European Solidarity Corps projects.

This Online Course is for project organizers, mentors and coaches and other support persons active in the European Solidarity Corps.

The background of this course

The European Solidarity Corps is an incredible opportunity for young people to demonstrate solidarity and contribute to their communities. It is also an empowering experience that helps them develop new competences.

Youthpass can help them become more aware of their learning and document the learning outcomes they acquire during their project. In order to make the most of this opportunity, young people might benefit from some support from their mentors, coaches, project organisers.

And as a mentor, coach, project organiser, you might need some guidance on how to make use of Youthpass, too!

At the end of this course, you, as a support person, will understand how the learning journey of a participant in a European Solidarity Corps project unfolds and how the Youthpass can be implemented along the way. You will develop the competences needed for supporting the participants, through self-assessment and reflection.

The course objectives

The course aims to empower and equip support persons active in the Eurpean Solidarity Corps - such as mentors, coaches, youth workers and others - with the information and competences they need to implement the Youthpass process.

Specifically, it aims to

› reflect on the learning value of the European Solidarity Corps projects;

› introduce the Youthpass process and how it fits in with the various actions of the European Solidarity Corps programme;

› discuss how to support reflection on learning in European Solidarity Corps projects;

› reflect on the competences needed for supporting learning through self-assessment and reflection;

› offer support for expressing one's learning outcomes from such projects in words.

1. Getting Started... Overview and Introduction to the Course

2. European Solidarity Corps as a Learning Experience

3. Youthpass and the European Solidarity Corps

4. The landscape: Who is Involved in Supporting Learning and Youthpass

5. Getting Started with Supporting Learning

6. Keeping Track of Learning

7. Writing it Down! Supporting Learners in Writing Their Self-assessment

8. Getting it Done: How to use the Youthpass Website

9. Summing-up and Looking Ahead

The target group

The target groups of this training course are project organisers and support persons within the European Solidarity Corps programme including mentors, coaches, tutors, youth workers as well as young people carrying out a Solidarity Project. Additionally, everyone who is interested in supporting learning processes is welcome to join and explore the resources available.

The structure of the course

The course is composed of the following nine modules:

The methodology of the course

Each module is structured into several chapters offering different content. Participants learn through videos, texts, practical exercises and reflections.

The course is self-paced. Participants may go through the modules and chapters on their own pace.

Each module will require 2-3 hours to complete the activities.

Register/enrol in this course

Self-enrolment at the top of this page

*******

Course authors/facilitators: Anita Silva, Michael Kimmig
Course providers: SALTO Training & Cooperation Resource Centre, in cooperation with JUGEND für Europa (National Agency - Germany). The course was created with the support of Anefore (National Agency - Luxembourg) and Agência Nacional para a gestão do programa Juventude em Acção (National Agency - Portugal).
Course duration: self-paced (approx. 2-3 hours / module, nine course modules)
Course language: English
Target group: Project organisers and facilitators of learning in the European Solidarity Corps programme including youth workers, mentors, coaches and trainers as well as young people carrying out Solidarity projects
Requirements: none
Learning recognition: Youthpass Certificate

Last update: 30.09.2022

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youthpass heart corps - guiding the learning journey

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Youthpass Heart Corps - Guiding the Learning Journey

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Develop your awareness and competences to support learning processes within European Solidarity Corps projects.This Online Course is for project organizers, mentors and coaches and other support persons active in the European Solidarity Corps.

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Facilitating Learning in European Solidarity Corps projects

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Facilitating Learning in European Solidarity Corps projects

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What is the role of learning in the European Solidarity Corps programme?

What is the relation/connection between serving and learning?

Why do we need to facilitate learning? Can't we teach them to facilitate their own learning?

Who can facilitate the learning of volunteers in ESC?

How can we facilitate learning? And, how can Youthpass be used to facilitate learning?

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MuC MeetUP #6 Facilitating Learning [Andreea Buzek]

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Facilitating Learning: challenges, tools & tips

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Facilitating Learning: challenges, tools & tips

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MuC Community Activities: Your Ideas & Thoughts

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MuC Community Activities: Your Ideas & Thoughts

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Our fourth MeetUP was dedicated to the Let’s face it Event in Bucharest. A small group gathers, one half that participated in the event and another half of community members that joined us. A short video with pictures brought back the atmosphere of our gathering and afterwards participants shared about the action plans that had been developed during the seminar.

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MuC Let's face it 2022 [Image Andreea Buzec]

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Connecting & networking

Mentoring inspirations

Community building

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Let's face it! Programme Flow & Resources [padlet]

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Let's face it! Programme Flow & Resources [padlet]

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Through Passion You Learn - Mirka Vavrecanova [Hu Chen via unsplash]

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With our very special guest Miroslava Vavrecanova, Chief of Human Resources Section (United Nations Volunteers UNV) we spoke about:

the personal story of her career and how mentors supported her, and

the work of United Nations Volunteers (UNV) and how they use mentoring for volunteers and staff development.

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anchor

spotify

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What are you occupied with? What activities are you doing with your volunteer? How do you support other mentors? How do you organise a mentoring programme? What methods/tools are you inventing and implementing? What publications, training courses, online courses are you working on?

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This self-paced course is for both newcomers and experienced mentors of the European Solidarity Corps Programme who are interested in developing their mentoring and networking competencies. It introduces the attendants to the essentials of mentorship in the European Solidarity Corps Programme as well as to the competences and tools for self-improvement as a mentor.

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Source: Training for Mentors

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Mentoring Training: Needs of organisations and mentors

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Mentoring Training: Needs of organisations and mentors

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What do organisations need in terms of supporting/ developing mentoring?

What do mentors need in order to improve their work?

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Together with our guests Natassa Dedousi (NET Officer, Hellenic National Agency for Erasmus+ Youth & European Solidarity Corps) and Olga Kyriakidou (trainer) we had an intensive exchange and discussion on Mentoring Training. They both shared their approach and experience with two training events on national and transnational level.

If it comes to the aims of those training for mentors it was about managing the transition from one programme to another, raising awareness of the role of the mentor and supporting the learning/volunteering journey of the volunteer by developing mentors competences. Furthermore it was an approach  to establish a network of mentors on a national level.

Natassa and Olga both stressed the importance of a needs analysis. First , there was a need to understand the new programme and second, there were the needs of mentors. Stories from mentors/good practice have been gained from interviews with mentors and volunteers. Most important needs of mentors: relate with their realities in organisations and compare their situations, the path how they became mentors and challenges mentors face and how to resolve them.

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SALTO Training and Cooperation Resource Centre

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How to support the reflection of learning

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How to support the reflection of learning

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SALTO Training and Cooperation Resource Centre

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The framework around supporting learning

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What kind of listener are you? - Questions to ponder

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What kind of listener are you? - Questions to ponder

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Content

Readiness for Learning

A framework around supporting learning

Listening and asking questions skills

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Learning: Finding solutions for difficult situations with peer-learning

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Learning: Finding solutions for difficult situations with peer-learning

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Workshop with Irina Stefanescu

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Challenges: How to deal with uncertainty?

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Challenges: How to deal with uncertainty?

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Workshop with Agnieszka Szczepanik

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How to support the reflection on learning

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Due to covid-restrictions we had to postpone our residential event and went online. Our content:

Re-connecting with community members

Working on challenges and learning

What’s up with Mentoring under Construction and next steps

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Volunteers in the local community [group 1]

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Volunteers in the local community [group 1]

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12.11.2020.
Spotlight ON! Mentoring under construction. Kick-off Event of our MuC Community (Live streaming). Watch the recording of this event

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Mentoring under Construction | Website link

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How to build healthy relationships between mentors and volunteers

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How to build healthy relationships between mentors and volunteers

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We mainly focus on three aspects: boundaries and ways of self-care for mentors.

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Talking about the recruitment and motivation of mentors. We want to look at the profile, the selection process, the role within an organisation as well as what motivates mentors to engage in a volunteering organisation.

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Sample session (4/4): Learning & Youthpass 

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Sample session (4/4): Learning & Youthpass 

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Sample session (3/4): Assistance and guidance during the project 

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Sample session (3/4): Assistance and guidance during the project 

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Sample session (2/4): Support of hosted volunteers before and upon arrival 

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Sample session (2/4): Support of hosted volunteers before and upon arrival 

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Sample session (1/4): Support for volunteers sent abroad

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Sample session (1/4): Support for volunteers sent abroad

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What’s your role around mentoring?

What kind of introduction/training activity they received?

What should be included in a capacity building activity for mentors?

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Approach towards mentoring training

Programme/sessions overview

Sample methods/tools used in this events

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Socialising, Informal Meetings, Communication: Ideas for Community Building Activities

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Socialising, Informal Meetings, Communication: Ideas for Community Building Activities

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MeetUPs & Podcasts: Ideas for content & resources for/from the Community

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MeetUPs & Podcasts: Ideas for content & resources for/from the Community

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First steps towards setting a structure for mentoring in your own organisation

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First steps towards setting a structure for mentoring in your own organisation

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Mentoring Programme/ Structure - Good practise examples

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Mentoring Programme/ Structure - Good practise examples

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How to set up a structure for mentoring in volunteering organisations - Good practise examples with Carlos

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You can catch up with what was shared in the kick-off event through the graphic recording:

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Watch the recording of this event

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What’s the character/essence of mentoring?

What are challenges and good practise in mentoring?

What support do mentors need?

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Challenges and opportunities in the mentoring field are being debated and resources shared.
Check out the open library for resources! :)

Constructive feedback

Conflicts between volunteers living together

Support volunteers with fewer opportunities / special needs

Mental Health Problems

Mentoring a group of volunteers

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We closed the Mentoring under Construction process with a community building event where we discussed the blueprint of the mentoring community:

Needs

Objectives

Members

Ways of working

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Results of groups discussions (pdf)

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Group discussions and additional resources (padlet link)

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Talking about mentoring

Mental health challenges

Resilience - The antidote

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The Story of Mentoring under Construction

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The Story of Mentoring under Construction

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Mentoring under Construction | Image: Andreea Buzec

Mentoring under Construction is community for mentoring practitioners within the European Solidarity Corps programme. It is also a process to build and develop this community. Mentoring under Construction aims at identifying, adapting and implementing good practices on mentoring within European Solidarity Corps programme.
M Mentoring under Construction is all about building a strong, sustainable community around mentoring within the European Solidarity Corps programme.

This community is for mentors, including those, who just embark into this journey, project managers that are developing and implementing volunteering projects, coordinators of volunteers, facilitators of learning, authors and trainers that are developing tools and resources about mentoring, members of National Agency and SALTO Resource Centres, that support this process, ... in short everyone who is interested in raising the quality in mentoring within European Solidarity Corps programme. This includes:

building a common understanding of key concepts around the role of mentor: role, responsibilities, needed competences,

developing personal and professional competence to keep up with the emerging challenges in the field of mentoring,

sharing knowledge and good practices,

building a vibrant network of people engaged in mentoring, ready to support one another, learn and develop.

Mentoring under Construction | The context

Mentoring under Construction | Our vision

Let's jump forward into a nearer future... Imagine a vibrant, resourceful community of mentoring practitioners that support one another in identifying, adapting and implementing good practices in their daily work within European Solidarity Corps programme.

Mentoring under Construction is the process of building this community.

Mentoring under Construction | A short history

The idea for Mentoring under Construction goes back to 2019 and came into life in form of a residential event for March 2020 in Bucharest. Like many other events in the field of European Youth Work it was planned, postponed, and then cancelled due to the uncertain situation of you-know-who.

We moved on with Mentoring under Construction in September 2020. The residential event was transformed into a series of four online events which took place in November-December 2020. These four online MeetUPs aimed at:

sharing experience on challenges and good practice examples of mentoring in European Solidarity Corps,

exploring and understanding the needs of mentors and organisations and mapping resources for mentoring, and

boost learning and development in terms of mentorship.

In 2021, we continue this series of online events with one-day intense workshops, MeetUPs and podcasts. This process - so we hope - will lead us to a residential event in Bucharest. Well, let's see 🙂

Mentoring under Construction | The people

Back in late 2019, Romina Matei (European Solidarity Corps Resource Centre) together with Andrei Popescu (Romanian National Agency for European Solidarity Corps) started to envision a European community around mentoring in the European Solidarity Corps Programme. In the beginning of 2020, Andreea Buzec joined as facilitator to bring forward the residential event, and later in the year, I joined the team to support the transformation process into online events.

Now, in 2021, we enlarged out team: Mateja Crnekovic (Croatian NA), Edouard Porttefaix (French NA) and Oli Atlason (Icelandic NA) joined us as well as Andrei Dobre in the role of a community manager.

Spotlight ON! Mentoring under Construction | Online events in 2020

We took of with community building in late 2020. The four online events consisted of:

A kick-off event (live streaming)

Two virtual Open Space events

A final community building event

Let's have a look at each event one-by-one:

Spotlight ON! Kick-off Event

The kick-off event served as a space to share, explore and discuss questions related to mentoring, such as challenges, good practice, quality, tools & resources, etc. It aimed at mapping the landscape of mentoring within the European Solidarity Corps programme, which is the starting point of Mentoring under Construction, a process of further exploration and community building around mentoring.

The event was a live streaming with three guests, that had a conversation on mentoring touching on:

What's the character/essence of mentoring?

What are challenges and good practise in mentoring?

What support do mentors need?

Check out the recording of this event on facebook!

Graphic Recording MuC Kick-off Event | Image: Andreea Buzec

Spotlight ON! Open Space Events

The two virtual open space events offered a space to share, explore and discuss questions related to challenges and good practise around mentoring. They aimed at bringing together people who would like to work on the topic of mentoring within the European Solidarity Corps programme. Both times, the topics were suggested and discussed by participants:

Volunteers in local community

Volunteers free time / Volunteers socializing together

Constructive feedback

Conflicts between volunteers living together

Quarantine and Pandemic situation

Support volunteers with fewer opportunities / special needs

Mental Health Problems

Mentoring a group of volunteers

The main approach for this event was Open Space Technology adjusted to our needs and online purposes.

Spotlight ON! Community Building Event

After the kick-off event and two virtual open space events, where we explored the landscape of mentoring, it was time to create a first blueprint for the community. The community building event aimed at shaping this blueprint. Therefore we discussed the following questions:

Elements of a Communtiy | Image: Andreea Buzec

The main approach for this event was the World Cafe.

Mentoring under Construction | Moving on in 2021!

In 2021 we would like to focus on the following points:

open the process to new community members,

strengthen members' involvement and relevance of topics addressed and shared resources, and

facilitate the transfer of responsibility for development and maintenance of the community towards the members.

Mentoring under Construction | Activities planned in 2021

One day intense workshop, 17.05.2021 | Information

MeetUPs: 01.06./15.06./29.06./13.07.2021 15.00 - 17.00 CET (stay tuned for announcement)

Podcasts (in preparation!)

One day intense workshop (in autumn)

Mentoring under Construction | Join us!

Join our Mentoring under Construction Facebook Group

Or contact us, if you want to take part in one of our next MeetUPs.

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Spotlight ON! Mentoring under Construction - michael kimmig

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Mentoring under Construction is community for mentoring practitioners within the European Solidarity Corps programme. It is also a process to build and develop this community. Mentoring under Construction aims at identifying, adapting and implementing good practices on mentoring within European Solidarity Corps programme.