RAINBOW

Volunteering is often perceived as something not fitting into interest of young people.“Volunteering, what a boring thing!”, “Volunteering, something just for rich people who have nothing to fill their spare time”: these are quite common statement young people make about volunteering and communitarian services.A perverted idea of volunteering make it not appealing for youngsters, teenagers and young adults.But, conversely, volunteering can be much more than just appealing, can be much more than just exciting, much more than just fun.In particular when implemented in international and intercultural environments and contexts, volunteering turn into a powerfull non formal education means.On this base, the project “Rainbow, multicolor volunteering bridging continents” was shaped and run in 2012, by a group of NGOs from Italy (Sicily), China (Hong-Kong), Mexico (Chiapas) and Spain (Catalunia). It was also supported by the Department for Juvenile Justice of the Italian Ministry of Justice.The project, co-ordinated by the ENGO InformaGiovani and co-funded by the Eu-ropean Commission and the Sicilian Regional Government, aimed to foster dialogue, exchange and co-operation between private and public bodies dealing with social and/or environmental issues in the concerned countries, by means of international volunte-ering as tool for social action and tool to face global environmental challenges.22 activities took place over the year, including exchange of good practices and job shadowing among the participant organizations and some youth exchanges directly in-volving young people.Particularly relevant was the involvement of a wide group of young people from di-sadvantaged backgrounds with, once more, turned into an innovative way to promote social inclusion and intercultural dialogue.The present publication is a diary of the experience, told in the words and images of the participants in the various initiatives.We leave to your eyes, minds and hearts the possibility to share the same feelings and emotions we had during the project.

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It is good to let the re-presentatives of different countries gather together to plan the project and its different stages, as there are a lot of obstacles and difficulties we need to come across due to different cul-tural background, langua-ges and way of living.

I wanted to live from inside an international volunteer project after many years of working on the bureaucra-tic side of selecting young offenders to involve in this kind of activities. Now I feel better the reality of such international projects as I really touched the im-pact they have on young of-fenders in probation period.

I had the possibility to know more about volunta-ry work in other countries, in particular which kind of activities other orga-nizations carry out and what is the social context in which they work.

After the Job shadowing, I had a clear idea on how to design international ac-

tivities fitting the needs of young people I work with, in particular these with a socio-cultural difficult background.

Throughout the cultural sharing, all internatio-nal participants including young offenders had op-portunity to jump out their box and learn different language and culture from each other’s.

We had the possibility to confront each-other in per-son about many aspects, including doubts and un-certainties about our role as youth leaders and social workers.

For all the organizations it was good to see potentia-lity of overseas co-operation

and to see that we can mix local and international en-gagement.

The interaction was very good. We didn’t have pro-blems in communication, misunderstandings or con-flicts. We spent an enjoya-ble time and we had an useful collaboration.

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In order to understand different cultures, it isn’t enough just to visit another country as a tourist; we had the wonderful possibility to see and share our daily life. Cultural activities we had and the possibility to directly interact with local community and social orga-nization gave us an unique chance to be involved in local life and feel ourselves part of it.

Intercultural nights, ga-mes, voluntary activities and tours were organized, and participants proposed some games and we also decided some trips together.

Yes, we had some conflicts due to different expecta-tions and cultural diffe-rences. As well as we had some conflict among some participants who were not fluent in English language. A group meeting facilitated by leaders made it possible to overcame problems and conflicts.

In few days we were able to bridge cultures, solida-rity, understanding, vo-lunteering and Peace. Un-doubtedly one of the best experience of my life.

To involve local youth we made a two days body-

painting event.Participants unleashed their creativity to design body painting layouts, paint their body, distribute leaflet and interact with the general public to promote the spirit of international volunteering and interna-tional voluntary service.

It was interesting to know that, although I am not European, I can partici-pate in European funded projects like this: it opened a new world to my future.

We all had the possibility to stay on an equal level, no matter our background.

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Even I had the possibility to show my working skills which are higher than my school level.Normally I feel under the average level of other young people, but here I felt to be “more than equal”.

Everyone gains something in terms of knowledge and personal experiences during such exchanges. Organiza-tions also gain in terms of visibility and in terms of new energies of their mem-bers.

After joining this pro-gramme, I became more open-minded to accept new friends, face challenges and live independently. It was jubilant for me to get along with the participants. Le-arning from them, I could know the culture all over the world within a short-term programme.

Having done some clea-ning in a natural reserve, I learnt to sacrifice my comfort for exchanging a better living environment. When I returned home, I was anxious to share this

experience with friends.

This project was for me a very intense experience. It was the first time I took part in such an activity and therefore I had to face new situations such as interac-ting with people from com-pletely different cultures. Of course it was difficult in certain situations, but I know I gained a lot from all of them.

As a local volunteer in my organization, I was passionate to promote In-ternational Volunteerism in my community with such a meaningful project.It gave us the possibility to involve in an international event some disadvantage

youth, to make them widen their horizons.

I was actually fearing that this experience would not bring anything. But thanks to the enriching ac-tivities we did, I now do not regret one single thing.

I enjoyed the special Me-xican, Chinese and Spa-nish dinner prepared by the participants. But I also liked the fact that during the process of cooking, everyone could take part in it as well. The result was a memorable mix of flavors and ingredients of their national cuisine and ea-ting habits… well, I don’t know how we survived it!

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Main benefit of the ac-tivity was taking care of others. In the beginning we were looking at each-other like strange persons, in the end we were like a big fa-mily.

I hope that our work and culture sharing done during the activities would have a long lasting impact and be-nefit the local community.

It was a very good expe-rience, I had the possibility to use my adaptability, cu-riosity, intuition and pro-fessional knowledge.

I’ve mainly been observing, but when necessary I had the possibility to express myself, my thoughts and my suggestions for the better implementation of activities and groups ma-nagement.

Wow! For the first time I was boarding in a Plane, really emotioned, I took a big quantity of photos to everybody who was around me since I wanted to keep every single detail of the

experience.

When we arrived to the venue, it was incredible to see coming out a huge group of young people to welcome us, to help us with the suitcases, to settle in, it was impressive! We even did not realize that not everybody was speaking Spanish.

We were so active all the time that we had no other thoughts than for the ac-tivities themselves, always something new and very funny.

It was very interesting the visit and the activity carri-ed on together with member of a local NGO. To see people dealing with issues such as immigrants’ pro-blems or discrimination, gave us the possibility to understand the reality of the city deeper than any tourist who is just passing not getting in contact with local community.

I loved to meet Maya in-digenous Tzotzil and life completely plunged in na-

ture, where main rule is to live “0 impact”!The thing I liked the most was their lifestyles, not ru-led by time and gratified by simple concept of mutual support.

I would advise to join this experience to everyone since it shows you the world with different eyes, it makes you grow and it opens your mind.

This publication is a supplement to In-Formati, registered in Palermo under #3/2003Director Pietro Galluccio (p.galluccio@informa-giovani.org)This publication is co-funded by the European Commission and the Sicilian Regional Government, but they are not responsible for the content, which reflects only views and opinions of the authors.

www.informa-giovani.org

www.voltra.orgwww.natate.org

www.rotllana.cat

www.giustiziaminorile.it"ItalianMinistry of Justice

Centre for Juvenile Justice of Sicily"

www.eacea.ec.europa.eu/youth

"Sicilian GovernmentDepartment for Youth Policy"

www.apq-giovani-sicilia.it

www.ec.europa.eu/culture/eu-china

with the support of

www.rainbowbridgingcontinents.eu

"ItalianMinistry of JusticeCentre for Juvenile

Justice of Sicily"

"ItalianMinistry of JusticeCentre for Juvenile

Justice of Sicily"

"Sicilian GovernmentDepartment for Youth Policy"