The Alliance of European Voluntary Service Organisations is an International Non-Governmental Youth Organisation that represents national organisations which promote intercultural education, understanding and peace through voluntary service. The Alliance, founded in 1982, is presently is presently made up of 43 full, associate and candidate member organisations. 32 of our members are based in 19 Erasmus + programme countries; 6 in Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia; 2 in UK; 3 in South Korea, Mexico and Nepal. 37 of our members are based in 22 countries members of Council of Europe.
Each member organisation runs an annual programme of International Voluntary Projects in their own country and exchanges volunteers with each other following the Alliance Quality Charter that stresses on the added value of volunteering, its educational aspect and on following quality standards agreed by members.
The Alliance mainly functions thanks to the voluntary involvement of activists and volunteers mandated by their organisations (Alliance members) for a period of 1 or 2 years, depending on the structural body type. These people are active in the TEAMS (replacing the former Executive Committee active until 2022), as well as in several other bodies, such as Necessary Action Groups (NAGs) and Communities of Interests (COIs).
The originality and innovation of the Alliance lies therefore in the fact that it has managed to guarantee its internal democratic function creating a structure that allows the widest participation on behalf of its member organisations.
TEAMS are the newest structural body of our network and have been created as one of the outcomes of the restructuring process that we have been going through since 2020. They came into motion officially at the last Alliance General Assembly taking place in November 2022. Their mission is to underpin the work of the NAGs in implementing the yearly Plan of Action (PoA) and of the CoIs in bringing forward the priorities of the Strategic Direction. TEAMS have a support, monitoring, and evaluation role towards NAGs and CoIs, and in this sense, they are key to the capacity building of people involved in the Alliance. They also implement some permanent tasks that require a longer-term commitment and more specific expertise such as the management of finances and digital tools) . TEAMS are in charge of providing the General Assembly (GA) with adequate means and information in order to make informed decisions regarding the yearly Plan of Action, the Strategic Direction, TEAMS composition, membership issues, and all other topics the GA is dealing with. (For more info on Teams responsibilities/tasks you can check the Alliance Standing Orders document)Participation is a process through which members gain influence and share control over development initiatives and the decisions and resources that affect them. Participation improves the quality, effectiveness and sustainability of projects and strengthen membership.
Since the foundation of the Alliance of European Voluntary Service Organizations in 1982, the network developed from a technical platform of volunteer exchange towards a cooperative network. In the Alliance, Participation is a fundamental principle. Within the Alliance participation means:
Participating volunteers (volunteers are actors of the project) in workcamps, long term voluntary services and educational activities (Study Visits, Training for Trainers, General Conferences, Evaluation meetings)
Active participation in the community life: voluntary work as a tool to improve active citizenship and democratic, political participation.
Active membership within the network: Members voluntarily take responsibilities for relevant tasks, working groups (every year) and can be elected to executive positions (every 2 years).
Active cooperation with other networks on IVS related issues.
The Alliance also encourages participation on a political and organizational level by building up or improving the skills of its members.
The way the Alliance considers participation is reflected in the management of the network. Based on democratic structure, Alliance works on its initiatives through an annual plan of action thanks to voluntary participation of 8 TEAMs, NAGs, COIs, staff and active volunteers of the member organisations.
