Whilst the EVS programme was originally set up for all young people, it has been noticed that in practice youth with fewer opportunities do not have the chance to be so involved in EVS.
Having realized that the duration of EVS projects, in combination with the very limited prior intercultural experience might be an important obstacle, the ALLIANCE wished to address this issue by including young people with fewer opportunities in its international workcamps programs: the application for the Group EVS project RAINBOW was submitted the 1st of February 2008 and the project ended the 15th of November 2009.
The main goal of the project was to give them an opportunity for a first experience in a voluntary service in another country. The final aim of this project was to empower young people in order to be active not only at their local level but also internationally. Promoters supported the young volunteers to continue their involvement in voluntary projects both of short term and Long term. The participation in a workcamp where the EVS volunteers could develop, amongst other things, their intercultural and communication competencies, was the first step that allowed the further volunteering involvement.
The workcamp was the common methodology of all activities of the project. All the workcamps had a common theme – the protection of the environment/heritage and additionally a common tool, the EVS blog.
The project involved 33 young people with fewer opportunities from 13 European countries and had the structure of a group EVS: one coordinator (the Alliance with the Access4All WG, a ad hoc Steering Committee and the Executive Committee) and 16 hosting and sending organisations (all members of the network). Involved organisations were ALTERNATIVE-V, CBB, CBF, CIA, COCAT, CONCORDIA F, ELIX-CVG, ESTYES, FIYE, GENCTUR; IBG, LEGAMBIENTE, LUNARIA, SEEDS, UNA-EXCHANGE and UNAREC.