Volunteers in eco-communities

In cooperation with Erasmus+, we are happy to share the results of our recent “Volunteers in Eco-Communities” project, where we shared our experience on how to begin, maintain and improve volunteering projects.

“How to start and manage volunteering projects in eco-communities” contains the results of a three-year collaboration between four ecovillages who are used to hosting large numbers of volunteers. Through studying and sharing each other’s experiences the goal of the project was to improve the volunteering practices in each community and put together a best practices guide for other communities who would like to start hosting volunteers or who are already doing so. The four communities involved in the project were Sieben Linden in Germany, Ananda Gaorii in Denmark, Angsbacka in Sweden and Clough Jordan in Ireland. Each of the participating communities found the project extremely helpful for improving their own volunteering practices and it is our hope that the published results will also help other communities to do the same.

The European Solidarity Corps gives lots of useful information for starting and managing volunteering projects through its guidebook and seminars but there is still a huge amount of valuable knowledge and information that is normally discovered only through experience. As such, these resources, based on the experience of four communities, are particularly useful. The resources are available in PDF form and on the project website (http://volunteers-in-ecocommunities.eu/).