It is still possible to apply for the Interreg Volunteer Youth (IVY) initiative and benefit from assistance of young and motivated person in implementation of project activities as duration of the initiative is prolonged until August 2018.

IVY is a pilot action to offer the possibility to young EU citizens aged 18-30 to serve as volunteers in cross-border, transnational or interregional programmes and related projects. Being solidarity and volunteering at the heart of IVY, this initiative is part of the European Solidarity Corps.

Managing Authority of the Programme from 23 April will host a volunteer Tijmen Kohn (24) from Netherlands who will take the role of Interreg Reporter and shall help with disseminating information on the benefit of Programme through reporting successful projects. While he is yet to start his duties, several of the Programme’s projects are already  deploying volunteers that help them with day to day project activities.

Linda Deičmane from Latvian organization “Lauku ceļotājs” which is a partner in two Latvia-Lithuania Programme’s projects tells that they often take volunteers because there are many small tasks for which they do not have enough capacity at office. So decision to apply for IVY initiative and host one volunteer for each project was quite obvious. The application process was simple and did not take much time –  in both cases it took about two weeks. “Lauku ceļotājs” wanted to work with local youth and already had deployed both current volunteers last summer so extra training was not necessary. Both volunteers shall be hosted at “Lauku ceļotājs” office in Riga by the end of July; at the moment they help with adding and updating project related information on the website. Also projects’ Lithuanian partners have their own volunteers. “We are pleased with this opportunity and we appreciate their help,” says Linda Deičmane.

Volunteer Toms Ziemelis (27) is a full-time volunteer in project “Heritage Gardens”: “I heard my mates discussing the IVY initiative. At that time I was unemployed, so I decided to have a closer look at the initiative and the opportunities it provides. I have volunteered at “Lauku ceļotājs” already in the past and I have always been interested in tourism, so the choice was not difficult. The tasks are interesting and colleagues are friendly.”

Volunteer Amanda Pētersone (19) helps the “AgriHeritage” project. Since Amanda is an IT student, she is currently deployed part-time and will switch to full-time engagement in summer. “The specifics of the tasks and most of colleagues were already known to me as I already worked in the organization last summer, so I had no problems getting involved and it did not require a lot of training to start. The IVY initiative gives me opportunity to gain practical experience during my studies,” explains Amanda.

For more information about the initiative and process to apply, visit https://www.interregyouth.com/