Описание на организацията:

Solidarcité organizes a citizenship year that allows young people to (re)build themselves through volunteer activities. It is a project to meet other young people for an experience where differences create wealth. The young people commit themselves during 5 to 9 months, from the end of September to June or from February to June in a team project based on 3 axes in the proposed activities.

Activities proposed

Since the goal of our project is essentially to find meaning in the volunteering commitment of youngsters, we propose concrete volunteer activities (practical, formative and constructive in an educational context).

Axe 1: a civic engagement in the form of community service and social activities.
By community service activity, we mean all the actions undertaken free of charge by the volunteers for the benefit of partners who do not have the human and/or financial means to carry out some of their projects. For example: to renovate the building of an association that does not have the resources to do it, to help disadvantaged people by distributing hot meals, to renew links between generations by offering activities in retirement homes, to help with the maintenance of nature reserves, to support the organization for specific cultural events, to organize and participate to an international workcamp, etc.

By "meeting activity", we mean all the actions undertaken free of charge by volunteers whose primary objective is to encourage the discovery of a particular public and reality. For example, making a video on the theme of stereotypes with elderly people, organizing a cultural visit with disabled people

Axe 2: a time of training and awareness.
Those actions are complemented by an extensive educational program with two major objectives:
Train volunteers for the project they will undertake (for example: initiation to manual work, initiation to animation techniques, European First Aid Certificate, ...);
To sensitize the volunteers to certain major social issues (for example: eco-citizenship, respect for difference, North-South relations, education to democracy, ...).

These new skills will allow volunteers to provide quality services and to have a better understanding of the society in which they live in. It will also represent a significant asset when those youngsters will start their working life.

Axe 3: a process of personal growth.
In this citizen year, there is a step concerning their personal maturation. It is a step in the service of others, the voluntary commitment must also be a step for the youngster, a moment of reflection and investment in its own future. Thanks to a personalized supervision, we prepare each young person to build his or her post-Solidarcité project. To do this, we offer:
- A workshop on "Knowing yourself better, to better orient yourself".
- Visits to non-profit organization specializing in information and guidance for young people
- A "project grant" (financial aid) intended to support each young person after his or her year of volunteering.

This cycle can be completed by an individual internship, company visits, expression workshops, …

Aims and objectives of these activities:
Through these three axes (service to the community, training and personal growth) Solidarcité aims to achieve the following objectives:
- To restore the desire and give the concrete possibility to exercise their citizenship in an active and dynamic way for every young person, including those whose socio-economic ease is not guaranteed;
- To offer, especially to the most vulnerable young people, a plus for their future by improving, through the project, their integration profile as well as their personal status;
- Within a constructive program, to allow the mixing of publics and to favor the meeting of young people, who normally despise or ignore each other;
- To contribute to the establishment of a better equality of opportunity, by offering all young people a capital of experiences, assets and relationships to pursue, thereafter, their own itinerary.

Target Group:
Volunteers come from different backgrounds, cultures and experiences. Some are vulnerable, others are less and finally there are some who are not. The Solidarcité project targets young Belgians between 16 and 25 years old, whether they have a diploma or not, whatever their social or geographical origin... One of the richness of the Citizenship Year is the mix of people who make up the volunteer groups. Because of the content of the project, the volunteers are mostly from underprivileged backgrounds and their action is a way to give meaning and a new direction to their future (most of them are unemployed or school dropouts). Solidarcité’s team pays attention to balance the groups with diversity when they make the volunteers teams.