Description of organisation

Joint, founded in December 2003, is one of the biggest and most innovative Youth Association in Italy. It is the Italian member of ICYE global network, the coordinator of the Italian Network for European Volunteering (RIVE) and the coordinator of an informal network recognized by the European Union counting on 232 international partners. Joint focus on providing learning opportunities to young people through international experiences such as European Solidarity Corps, International volunteering, Work Camps, local and international Training Courses, Youth Exchanges and Capacity Building Projects focusing on advocacy, active participation, intercultural learning, social entrepreneurship and sustainable tourism. The mission of the association is to provide non-formal education opportunities for young people through international mobility, with the final goal of supporting them becoming active and attentive citizens of the world. Association main office is in Milano where Joint can count on 8 full time and 3 part-time workers plus one ESC intern, 3 civil servants and a group of over 30 local volunteers.

Joint developed and currently manages some of the most known websites of international mobility opportunities in Italy and in Europe, reaching over 150.000 people every month through websites, social medias and newsletters. We currently coordinate 18 ESC/EVS HOs across Italy and cooperate with several local organisations and networks. This cooperation helps us to foster high local impact of mobility activities. In Milan for example, we cooperate with the local network of Youth Centres (CAGs) as we coordinate 4 of them in ESC, hosting a total of 10 ESC volunteers.

Since 2015 Joint is involved also in the coordination of work camps and international volunteering activities outside the realm of E+, creating strong connections outside of Europe: for this reason, since 2017, we are the official Italian member of the ICYE worldwide network focusing in particular on overseas long term volunteering.

In short, our main activities are:
- ESC Coordinating organization in Italy, with around 36 volunteers hosted per year in 18 organizations all around the country;
-ESC Sending Organization with 80-100 volunteers sent per year abroad;
-Erasmus+ KA1 youth projects as Sending and Hosting organization;
-Management of KA2 and KA3 and Civil Society Cooperation projects (Europe AID) on:
a- active participation (Youth for Europe https://youthforeurope.eu/about-youth-for-europe/ and Global Youth Advocacy https://www.globalyouthadvocacy.net/ )
b- Entrepreneurship (SEEDS https://socialeconomyresources.net/, Youth@work)
c- Recognition of volunteering and certification (Global Recognition and GloCal Recognition https://glorecertificate.net/ )
-running local Training Courses
a- for Youth Leaders,
b- on Europlanning
c- on Social entrepreneurship
-sending volunteers to work camps and volunteering experiences (50 volunteers per year) within and beyond ICYE network.