in action and out
I'm leaving on Monday for 10 days of facilitating a youth exchange on cultural difference. We'll be 38 people, meeting in Ljubljana and coming over to Valdagno during 10 days. I built a website that is available here: www.451net.org/in_action
The project is made to be quite a nice one: after all our experience we can be sure of it. Most of the participants are 18-20 years old and haven't participated in international events before - it promises to be quite a lot more interesting for them this way. We'll see.
It was supposed to be much bigger in the beginning, stopping in more towns and being all grand. But we're experiencing the same problem as so many other Italian NGO's - the National Agency, the office coordinating the use of EC Youth Programme funds on the state level, is effectively not working. I haven't had any local trainings the volunteers are supposed to have and at the end of my service (10th month of the project!) the money still has to arrive. For all the people who call our office and ask if we are looking for new volunteers... well, I would really like to tell them to give it up with Italy as there is no hope for small organisations in the present climate. I wrote to the Commission and they said - someone will read your letter in the future. Sigh. That's why this sector is called non-profit and my position is called a volunteer. I'm not even supposed to get anything in return for what I do. But I have to say - this sucks.
The project is made to be quite a nice one: after all our experience we can be sure of it. Most of the participants are 18-20 years old and haven't participated in international events before - it promises to be quite a lot more interesting for them this way. We'll see.
It was supposed to be much bigger in the beginning, stopping in more towns and being all grand. But we're experiencing the same problem as so many other Italian NGO's - the National Agency, the office coordinating the use of EC Youth Programme funds on the state level, is effectively not working. I haven't had any local trainings the volunteers are supposed to have and at the end of my service (10th month of the project!) the money still has to arrive. For all the people who call our office and ask if we are looking for new volunteers... well, I would really like to tell them to give it up with Italy as there is no hope for small organisations in the present climate. I wrote to the Commission and they said - someone will read your letter in the future. Sigh. That's why this sector is called non-profit and my position is called a volunteer. I'm not even supposed to get anything in return for what I do. But I have to say - this sucks.
