Description of organisation

FUNDACIÓN ESPLAI, CIUDADANIA COMPROMETIDA’s (Fundación Esplai, Committed Citizenship) mission is promoting committed citizenship through social inclusion, social-educational from the perspective of rights, with inclusion and transformation with dedication to youth. All this through community social intervention, socio-educational action and inclusion in the field of ICT, in the framework of network with the Third Sector and the rest of social agents.
We work at local, national and international level developing different projects addressed to different vulnerable groups and designing methodological tools and training materials.
In particular, our e-Inclusion projects aim at developing training methodologies for digital literacy, addressed to different vulnerable groups, as well as helping ICT users to gain e-skills, with a special attention to improve young people’s employability.
At the European level Fundación Esplai has a significant experience in managing LLP projects, having also taken part in the Safer Internet Programme with the project “Social Web, Social Work” led by SDC. Currently we are also partners in two Erasmus+ projects addressed to improve young people’s and youth workers’ skills to better face the nowadays society and labour market challenges.

And we do so inspired by our characteristic values:
UTOPIA, SOLIDARITY, INITIATIVE, HAPPYNESS, INDEPENDENCY, TRANSPARENCY, PLURALISM, SUSTAINABILITY, COHERENCE.
FUNDACION ESPLAI was born in 1999 and during 2019 we celebrated our 20th anniversary. Our main areas of work are:

COMMITTED YOUTH
•Mobilization, formation and accompaniment of youth groups committed to their communities.
•Values education projects.
•Intergenerational Learning and Service Programs.
•Initiatives that promote healthy lifestyles.
•Incorporation into the workplace.
•Promotion of participation and volunteering. We celebrate yearly our “Forum- Committed Citizenship” with the participation and involvement of almost 200 young people involved in our programs and volunteering for the event, throughout Spain in representation of all those who take part in our programs. A beautiful event in Madrid, open to the public, in which we also celebrated the Awards Ceremony.

TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT
•Youth employability programs in the ICT sector.
•First job opportunity programs for young people in risk of exclusion.
•Training for the employment of groups with special difficulties.
•Training of socio-digital facilitators
We have increased projects aimed at the employability of young people, especially those who have special difficulties in accessing the job market. We have combined our experience in the field of ICT with our ability to create new networks between social sectors and youth work, where training plays a key role.

DIGITAL EDUCATION AND RESPONSIBLE USE OF ICT
•Projects for the digital empowerment of citizens
•Social inclusion through ICT
•Prevention programs and safe internet
•Revitalizing networks

CHILD HOOD AND FAMILIES
• Promotion of Children’s Rights
•Campaigns to guarantee ac - cess to educational free time for children in vulnerable situ - ations
•Centers for leisure and edu - cational free time (“esplais”)
•Network of sleep-away camps
•Comprehensive program

THIRD SECTOR
• Promotion of volunteering
• Strengthening the Third Sector and participation in networks
•Training and counseling pro - grams
•Development of materials and publications
•Promoting reflection and debate
We are strongly committed to promote volunteering and to strengthen the third sector, key factors to build of a fairer world. For that, we launch training and advice programmes and we elaborate key material for social entities. We make debates dynamic and foster thoughts on themes interesting for the associative sector, and we participate in the main statewide Third Sector networks.
We have conducted debates with hundreds of people, on “Political Impact and the Third Sector”, “Convergences for educational change” and “Inclusion in the era of postdemocracy”, which we published in our collection Documents for Debate under the title: “For a new citizenship. Political incidence and Third sector. Convergences for educational change “.
Since 2000, we have managed and revitalized the web portal www.voluntariado.net, a project that aims to provide information, give visibility and offer advice and resources to volunteering.

INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION
•Commitment to the IberoAmerican League of Civil Society Organizations
•Participation in European networks
•Development of European programs

Inclusion topics

This organisation is willing to involve volunteers who face situations which make their participation in activities more difficult, from the following categories for different types of project:

• Economic obstacles
• Social obstacles