ASSOCIATION DE COOPERATION AL DESAROLLO ABARKA

descripción de la organización:

ABARKA ONGD was created to serve the community by seeking solutions to problems and designing actions to prevent problems through formal and non-formal education activities. ABARKA brings together in its team trainers, facilitators, young people, social workers, youth policy makers, experts, volunteers and donors in different settings at national and international level. ABARKA is registered under Spanish law with charity number: AS/B/19631/2015 and has Tax Identification Number: G95836847

ABARKA Mission Statement
“Improving the lives of people without borders and in a meaningful way, with sensitivity to the international and multicultural environment with respect to local realities”.

The aims and purposes of this Association are:
• Development Cooperation: develop actions and seek funding to improve education, health, sanitation, food, entrepreneurship and comprehensive training in Africa; with special attention to women and children.
• Humanitarian Action: encourage citizen participation, cultural exchange and promote North-North and North-South volunteering.
• Integration and Sustainability: Advise local entities on development cooperation and international relations, as well as promote the social and labor integration of immigrants and groups in a situation of social exclusion in Euskadi.
Our beneficiaries, members and supporters are children, adolescents, young people, youth workers, social workers, social volunteers, students, teachers and social activists, companies, communities in developing countries. We also focus on people with fewer opportunities: cultural, social and geographical barriers. Our orientation age range varies from 4 years to 60 years.
We decided to apply for the seal of quality because since the creation of ABARKA we have always worked with volunteers but never with the European organization. For this reason, we want to get involved in volunteering and European Solidarity Corps projects to broaden our perspectives and help foster these exchanges that enrich young people by giving them the opportunity to become true agents of change. In addition to all this and more than a certificate, this accreditation will allow us to evaluate our own internal standards. It will allow us to set up a useful mechanism to promote the reception, management, support and impact of each of the activities that we are going to carry out in our communities with the volunteers. Our association enters its seventh year of existence, this seal of quality will allow us to mutate/adapt in a constantly changing global environment in order to create more social values in our town and beyond its borders.

Why are you applying for Quality Label? Please describe the motivation of your organisation to participate in the European Solidarity Corps and how you will contribute to the programme’s objectives of promoting solidarity and addressing societal challenges.
In 2017, we began our path with the European Union within the Erasmus Plus program by chance and since then we have not stopped learning by doing, discovering new techniques and methodologies and trying new experiences and good practices. We have also been able to expand and diversify our network of contacts and collaborations throughout the European Union and neighboring countries. The most important thing is that we have managed to get closer to the populations through the exchange of experiences, training and the exchange of ideas, from such diverse realities
but multiple. This trip has exposed us directly to the problems and needs of our environment, the multiple messages we received from our former participants with positive feedback on our projects, allow us to understand that continuity must be assured, but at the same time we must innovate in the face of change. constant problems of society.
This accreditation is an opportunity for us in several aspects:
1) It will be an acknowledgment of the processes we have used in the past and a confirmation of the processes we plan to use in our projects. These processes are a set of tools that will allow us to go further in obtaining the expected results and objectives, but also in ensuring that we will have the desired impact on the different communities involved.
2) In the field of the European Solidarity Corps, we will finally have a much more elaborate work plan, understandable for all and above all accompanied by all the monitoring, control, evaluation and reporting tools that until now were not mastered.
3) Our first wish is to be able to dedicate our time to our activities, so we can effectively concentrate on the solutions to bring to our beneficiaries and be fully attentive to them, something that until now required an additional effort.
Given our experience working with young people from many fields, we have detected several problems:
A) The first is the fear of the job future that awaits them. When we talk to them about the possibility of working in other countries or even traveling for pleasure, they are very reluctant because they don't know and have never had contact with other young people from other countries.
B) On the other hand, the arrival of covid-19 has made them feel vulnerable and they see their world smaller and smaller. Indeed, many family members have lost their jobs and unemployment is becoming more visible and becoming a reality, impacting all areas.
C) In the area where we are located (Guipúzcoa), Erasmus is more widely known for the mobility of university students and our objective is to publicize everything covered by the European Solidarity Corps, Erasmus Plus and European youth policies. For this reason, over the next few years, our mission is to make the European Union's projects known to the citizens around us.

What are the activities and experience of your organisation that are relevant to this application?
Since 2017 we have continued to grow by carrying out training projects, youth exchanges and very recently projects to start up intellectual products to cover various needs. We have organized 8 projects in the Guipúzcoa area with a total of some 300 young people of more than 13 nationalities, but we have also participated as a partner in a dozen international mobility projects allowing a hundred young people
Spaniards of both sexes live a training and socio-cultural experience in the European community.
Since 2020, we have been assigned long-term projects that allow us to develop training modules for associations, schools and anyone interested in the topics we address. These projects are censored by the establishment of a self-training platform to ensure that those interested can register and follow the lessons, each at their own pace. The topics addressed are in close harmony both with the SDG and with the objectives and priorities of the European Union regarding the Fight against underemployment of both young people and adults, radicalization in youth circles as a result of discrimination of all kinds and lack of employment, fake news and all the controversy that the coronavirus continues to generate, the lack of initiative and creative spirit...
All these activities were carried out thanks to the participation and coordination of teams of volunteers dedicated to the social cause.
We have also been closely involved in carrying out volunteer activities in Cameroon where we have recruited, trained and dispatched volunteers for the following community projects:
- Initiating, organizing and executing community projects in Cameroon since 2011
- Support associations in their local projects such as design and maintenance of their website, educational projects in centers or orphanages, deconstruction project of drinking water wells, monument restoration projects...
- Evaluation of volunteer services for some 10 local NGOs in Cameroon and Gabon.
- Organization of Training and Capacity Development for the largest student organization in the world called AIESEC with the chapters of Cameroon and Gabon mainly.
- Since 2011 we have developed and carried out more than 50 small community projects with a total of +150 international volunteers of 30 nationalities and +80 local volunteers in Cameroon.
All of these projects have a single, unique goal: to build a more inclusive society, supporting vulnerable people and responding to social challenges.

Does your organisation have previous experience in cross-border activity and cooperation outside Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps? If any, please describe this experience.
The creation of ABARKA arises from a history of significant events that have marked the life of one of its co-founders, originally from Cameroon. In 2008, with the concern of solving his own needs for access to education and the useful training that he needed to prosper, Clotaire Ntienou will create the WebDev Foundation. Since then, with this local association, and working with local volunteers to meet local needs, Clotaire will enable more than 10,000 people in 7 villages in Cameroon to benefit from training and awareness on the following topics: information and communication technology, computer use, health, sexually transmitted diseases, languages, cultural diversity, rural entrepreneurship, community development, sports and many more. These activities were organized with different groups of national and international volunteers who
they went both to towns and to orphanages or schools with a high rate of disadvantaged children.

So when Clotaire settled permanently in Spain in 2015, not wanting to cut this bridge with Cameroon and Africa, we created ABARKA with the main objective of continuing this experience beyond the African borders.
Since then, we have been closely involved in carrying out volunteer activities in Cameroon where we have recruited, trained and sent volunteers for the following community projects:
- Support associations in their local projects such as design and maintenance of their website, educational projects in centers or orphanages, deconstruction project of drinking water wells, monument restoration projects...
- Evaluation of volunteer services for some 10 local NGOs in Cameroon and Gabon.
- Organization of Training and Capacity Development for the largest student organization in the world called AIESEC with the chapters of Cameroon and Gabon mainly.
- Since 2011 we have developed and carried out more than 50 small community projects with a total of +150 international volunteers of 30 nationalities and +80 local volunteers in Cameroon.
All of these projects have a single, unique goal: to build a more inclusive society, supporting vulnerable people and responding to social challenges. 2011 developed and realized more than 50 small communities project's with a total of +150 international volunteers from 30 nationalities and +80 local volunteers in Cameroon.

Please mention any existing international partnerships your organisation has built, through Erasmus+ or the European Solidarity Corps or other activities/programmes.
* As of 2017, ABARKA creates Erasmus+ programs to allow rural communities to improve their lives and jobs in Guipúzcoa, focusing on the comprehensive development of local communities with an emphasis on education, health, women's empowerment and well-being that lead to the overall development of our nation. We also challenge and promote youth activism, active citizenship, youth participation and youth responsibility. For this, we have created and built a strong portfolio of alliances with the objectives of cooperating, coordinating and jointly advocating with communities, relevant local, national and international partners, public and private stakeholders. The main objective is to provide new non-formal learning opportunities. learning and mobility that can stimulate and extract the full potential of young people as promoters of sustainable development from the economic, social, cultural, technological and civil perspectives.
* We have a very strong association with Italy and the city of Taranto, so we have already been there twice (2019 and 2021) for meetings to motivate and stimulate the participation of young people. These meetings resulted in the delivery of conferences and workshops, including TEDx talks.
* We also have a solid partnership built by our experience of more than 12 years of work in the field of development cooperation with Cameroon and Gabon, where we have already carried out more than 10 community education and awareness projects in the areas of entrepreneurship, education, health, environmental protection and forced child labour.
* As part of Erasmus+ we have a relational database with France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Estonia, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Romania, Morocco, Azerbaijan. About 16 countries of the European Union and neighboring countries with which we have 5 years of experience and already more than 18 KA1 and 5 KA2 in progress.




ABARKA ONGD se creó para servir a la comunidad buscando solución a problemas y diseñando acciones para prevenir problemas a través de actividades de educación formal y no formal. ABARKA reúne en su equipo formadores, facilitadores, jóvenes, trabajadores sociales, responsables de políticas de juventud, expertos, voluntarios y donantes en diferentes entornos a nivel nacional e internacional. ABARKA está registrada bajo la ley española con número de caridad: AS/B/19631/2015 y posee el Número de Identificación fiscal: G95836847

Declaración de la misión de ABARKA
“Mejorar la vida de las personas sin fronteras y de manera significativa, con sensibilidad al entorno internacional y multicultural con respecto a las realidades locales”.

Los fines y fines de esta Asociación son:
• Cooperación al Desarrollo: desarrollar acciones y buscar financiación para mejorar la educación, la salud, el saneamiento, la alimentación, el emprendimiento y la formación integral en África; con especial atención a las mujeres y los niños.
• Acción Humanitaria: fomentar la participación ciudadana, el intercambio cultural y promover el voluntariado Norte-Norte y de Norte a Sur.
• Integración y Sostenibilidad: Asesorar a los entes locales en materia de cooperación al desarrollo y relaciones internacionales, así como promover la integración social y laboral de inmigrantes y colectivos en situación de exclusión social en Euskadi.

Nuestros beneficiarios, miembros y simpatizantes son niños, adolescentes, jóvenes, trabajadores juveniles, trabajadores sociales, voluntarios sociales, estudiantes, profesores y activistas sociales, empresas, comunidades en países en desarrollo. También nos enfocamos en las personas con menos oportunidades: obstáculos culturales, sociales y geográficos. Nuestro rango de edades de orientación varía desde los 4 años hasta los 60 años.

Decidimos solicitar el sello de calidad porque desde la creación de ABARKA siempre hemos trabajado con voluntarios pero nunca con el organismo europeo. Por ello, queremos implicarnos en proyectos de voluntariado y del Cuerpo Europeo de Solidaridad para ampliar nuestras perspectivas y ayudar a fomentar estos intercambios que enriquecen a los jóvenes dándoles la oportunidad de convertirse en verdaderos agentes de cambio. Además de todo esto y más que un certificado, esta acreditación nos permitirá evaluar nuestros propios estándares internos. Nos permitirá poner en marcha un mecanismo útil para promover la acogida, gestión, apoyo e impacto de cada una de las actividades que vamos a realizar en nuestras comunidades con los voluntarios. Nuestra asociación ingresa a su séptimo año de existencia, este sello de calidad nos permitirá mutar/adaptarnos en un entorno global en constante cambio con el fin de crear más valores sociales en nuestra localidad y más allá de sus fronteras.