During the COVID-19 outbreak it turned out that many Elderlies are lack of digital skills.
Young volunteers of Bright Future Foundation have come up with a great Solidarity project to teach Elderlies basic digital skills (for instance, nowadays, it is safer to be able to shop online, is very important not to feel lonely and be able to communicate with their family and friends, using popular applications, like WhatsApp, Viber, etc.).
The project “Digital skills for elderlies” is being implemented under the European Union’s Solidarity Corps. This Solidarity Project is non-profit (thus – free of charge) and absolutely on voluntary basis. In the frame of this project 5 initiative volunteers will work together and prepare digital skills’ developing workshops for elderlies. Cooperating with Participe Amstelland, the initiative young people will gather with the target group (elderlies) in Wijkcentrum Alleman (Amstelveen).
The project will last 12 months.
At the end of the project the volunteers receive EU Youthpass certificates, which they can attach to their CV, while applying for a job in the Netherlands and abroad.
Cooperation: Participe Amstelland
Venue: Wijkcentrum Alleman
Funded by:
Dutch newspaper "AMSTELVEENS NIEUWSBLAD" reported on our Solidarity Projects to be started in Amstelveen.
"AMSTELVEENS NIEUWSBLAD" and "MIJN AMSTELVEEN" reported on our 3 Solidarity projects' successes.
Netherlands Diary reported about the start of the project.
[International dissemination]
Report about our EU Solidarity projects, being implemented in the Netherlands.
During the European Youth Week this Solidarity Project was nominated in the frame of the "EU SOLIDARITY AWARDS 2021" 🏆.
A nice graduation and goodbye party for the target group to once again discuss the gained skills, learned materials, the project's impact and results, as well to collect feedbacks from the target group.
[Guest at Dutch local podcast, organized by AANAMSTELVEEL.NL]
We talked about our EU Solidarity projects, under the European Solidarity Corps ("Bilingual Book for International Children", "Dutch for Non-Dutch", "Digital Skills for Elderlies", etc.), about ongoing and future projects.
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Multilingual competence
Was developed working in an international team. The volunteers helped one another in translating different working materials and presentations, handouts and important notes for the target group. Thus the multilingual competence was perfectly improved during the project.
Personal, social and learning to learn competence
Solidarity projects first of all let the volunteers grow spiritually, become better persons by supporting those who really need their skills, experience, time or solicitude. Working together the team had space to experience themselves in the position of project managers, presenters, developing not only number of personal and social skills, but also oratory skills, time-management, digital skills, ability to represent the information in easy and non-formal way, etc. Teamwork, project set-up and implementation led to improvement of the volunteers' organizational, administrative and time management skills. During project elaboration, they had a great chance to enrich their skills in project management, as they were the ones to take the responsibility for the full implementation of the project.
As the team members have different professional backgrounds, they were able to share and gain lots of skills and knowledge from each other. The volunteers improved their social competence through working, cooperating and communicating with each other, with the target group, as well with different local partners and others in the frame of the projects’ activities and in various situations, such as: planning different project activities and team-building games, organizing small group works, discussions, negotiation and brainstorming sessions, evaluation sessions, competitions and other interactive activities. They developed negotiation and presentation skills, prepared presentation materials and conducted digital competences developing workshops for elderlies, introduction/presentation meetings with them. While working with the target group, they had chance to improve interpersonal communication and motivation skills. During the Covid situation in the country the group found out the way to efficiently work also online and provide support to the target group.
Learning to learn comp. was improved while doing various researches on diff. topics, developing personal skills and afterwards sharing with the group. Social skills were developed, while communicating with the target group, partners and other local stakeholders for the project’s efficient implementation. Creating presentations and experiencing themselves in presenter’s role the team improved writing skills, their Dutch grammar, as well researching, oratory and motivating skills. Personal, social and learning to learn competence was improved by reflections and discussions about the importance of self-assessment, periodic and monthly reflections, learning styles, effective non-formal methods (used by the coach and the whole group) and filling out the Youthpass. These made the volunteers to once again come back to themselves and think about their learning habits. Thus the team members learned by doing, experiencing non-formal learning methods by themselves.
Citizenship (Civic) competence
As a desired impact and outcome the youngsters have acquired such actual skills, as leadership, worked with other people in the neighbourhood, as well with the target group, which enhanced their social and civic competences. The volunteers efficiently created an additional opportunity, safe environment for learning and socialisation of the target group, considering COVID-19 various restrictions. The project activities improved the citizenship (civic) competence, while the volunteers, acting as active citizens and initiating the Solidarity project, supported elderlies in the neighbourhood and shared with them experience and knowledge on digital skills. The volunteers have got awareness of the fundamental values of our society, such as solidarity, tolerance, empathy and respect towards otherness, self-confidence, adaptability. Civic part was improved by the participants, taking up tasks as active citizens, discovering more about the Netherlands, Dutch people, their habits, interests and daily routine and using this information, while deciding the topics of the workshops and the daily useful web-sites and applications. Also thanks to this project, with their example, the volunteers promoted Solidarity as a value, strong citizenship and volunteering opportunities for the youth.
Entrepreneurship competence
Using NFL methodology and working in international and fun environment, the team was given space to contribute to improvement of that competence. Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship were improved by volunteering and contributing for the project’s activities, its impact and results. The core skills, such as organizational skills and entrepreneurship competence were improved, taking up initiative in the activities and sharing ideas and practices with one another, as well with the coach. Coming up with new and fresh ideas, not being afraid to make changes in the working procedures - all of these were the basis for entrepreneurship competence’s improvement.
Teamwork, project set-up and implementation led to improvement of the volunteers’ organizational, administrative and time management skills. The volunteers used customer-centric approach, always taking into account the needs and feedbacks of the target group. Leadership and entrepreneurship, problem resolution skills were improved, while planning and implementing this project. Presentation skills, key to success in entrepreneurship competence’s improvement, were developed, while working with the target group, as well while disseminating the project’s impact and result.
This Solidarity project had big impact on the volunteers, developing their skills in non-formal learning. Conducting works with the target group helped the volunteers to become more disciplined with a higher sense of responsibility, as the expectations from them were high. The team members had had already started to develop entrepreneurial attitude by taking initiative to implement this Solidarity project. Taking time and planning the project’s activities had positive effect on their personal learning process. The volunteers did their best to develop Entrepreneurship competence within this project, as well will develop, while taking initiative and coming up with follow-up projects ideas and motivating youth to be involved in such Solidarity and volunteering initiatives. The team had a good overview of the learning outcomes, while working on the Youthpass. They are ready to make efforts to development their core competences, actively using and promoting Youthpass and its provided learning opportunities.
Cultural awareness and expression competence
The project encouraged communication and cooperation between youth from different countries, with different educational and cultural backgrounds. The team had space to make researches on the topics and had experience in working with different people, having different cultural backgrounds. The group developed flexibility, while getting ready for the digital skills developing workshops, sharing responsibilities within the group, taking into consideration not only interests, abilities, but also cultural backgrounds and cultural specificities/habits of each of the team members. Through information exchange and group discussions on cultural topics, on traditional dishes from their home countries, national music, songs and dances, theatre, literature and other forms of art, the volunteers got to know each other better, gained knowledge about differences and similarities among their cultures, sometimes also shared with the target group. Thus the cultural awareness and expression competence the initiative volunteers improved, gained skills of expressing their own culture and learned about the others' – their coworkers and the target group.
Besides of the fact that the group consisted of 5 international enthusiastic young individuals with different cultural and professional backgrounds, within the fame of this project the volunteers cooperated with other people, again having different cultural backgrounds. Working in international environment, in multinational and multicultural group, as well with Dutch target group - all of these were a great contribution to the volunteers’ social skills’, cultural awareness and expression competence's improvement.
Digital competence
This project was aimed to promote social inclusion and to encourage youth to help elderlies to develop their digital competences. The project included very responsible tasks for the volunteers to be realised. They acted very attentive and enthusiastic, being able to create trustful and comfortable environment for the target group and help them to feel at ease, while making efforts to develop digital competences.
A lot of activities of this Solidarity Project were implemented in the digital space or using digital information/applications. While preparing presentation materials, conducting ZOOM preparation and evaluation virtual team meetings, sharing working files on digital platform, as well conducting digital competences developing workshops for elderlies, introduction/presentation meetings with them, the team members developed personal digital and researching skills by themselves. The team improved skills in making digital presentations, while getting prepared for the workshops and creating easy-to-understand digital materials on different necessary topics for the target group, improved skills in Power Point. Digital skills in video making were improved, while creating and promoting reporting and promotion videos after each implemented workshop. Working on the web-site, using various tools and applications for Social-Media Marketing also had great impact on digital competences improvement. The volunteers did their best to create trustful and comfortable non-formal environment for the vulnerable target group to learn by doing, helping them to feel at ease, while making efforts to develop their digital competences.
Mathematical competence and competence in science, technology and engineering
That was done through the research, which was based on quantitative and qualitative data gathered and analysed by the volunteers. Also understanding the data was improved during the group discussions.
Literacy competence
Was improved thanks to: proofreading, reading comprehension, researching and finding necessary information to include in new presentations, improving speech and oratorical skills, etc.
Task specific competences
Flexibility and problem solving skills were improved, while searching for necessary information and sources for the workshops. Creativity and researching skills were developed, while improving the writing competences (presentations, handouts). Critical thinking and problem solving skills were improved, while volunteering for the target group within different workshops and meetings. Reporting in short sentences, as well presentation and oratory skills were improved in the frame of various gatherings and workshops and while doing SMM.
The volunteers have got awareness of the fundamental values of our society, such as solidarity, tolerance, empathy and respect towards otherness, self-confidence. As well they developed such key skills, as creativity, flexibility and adaptability, communication and negotiation skills, time and people management, skills to delegate tasks, sense of responsibility, self and people motivation skills, conflict resolution, ability to make decisions, etc. The volunteers reflected on their learning process and evaluated improved skills, as well – project results, impact and outcomes, while working on their Youthpasses.
We believe that as a result of this Solidarity Project the initiative youngsters will become real change makers in their communities, actively promoting social inclusion, Solidarity as a value, care and support, benefits of volunteering projects, connecting different generations, as well showing an example of fruitful cooperation and communication. All of the youngsters are standing as a pledge of efficient strong volunteers, youth workers, who actively promote Solidarity as a Value, introducing and spreading the standards and methods of NFL, promoting EU Solidarity Corps and telling about Youthpass.
Second event of AMSTELVEEN CONNECT@, organized by Municipality of Amstelveen (Gemeente Amstelveen).
We represented our projects, told about their success. (VIDEO & PHOTO)
