The capacity building project Towards Effective Humanitarian Volunteering aimed to reinforce the capacities of partners from the South Caucasus region, Balkans, Middle East and various regions in Asia, in different fields linked to humanitarian volunteering management. This project involved three EU partners from France (ADICE), Czech Republic (ADRA Czechia), and Slovakia (ADRA Slovakia); as well as 7 non-EU partners from Kyrgyzstan (IDEA CA), Armenia (YIC), Nepal (WHR), Cambodia (CYA), Lebanon (ADRA Lebanon), Serbia (ADRA Serbia), and North Macedonia (VCS). The TEHV project had two specific objectives: 1. Obtaining the EU Aid Volunteers certification, and 2. Building capacities of the hosting organizations in the fields of Safety and Security, Needs Assessment, Volunteering Management, Communication, Visibility and Dissemination and Disaster Risk Reduction. Besides training sessions, partners were provided mentoring in order to better understand and improve their management of volunteers.

Throughout the project’s 22-month implementation period, 8 online Capacity Building Trainings were conducted, within which around 17 tools were presented and elaborated upon. These ranged from various policies on the Safety & Security of Volunteers, Data Protection, Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults, and Equal Opportunities, to tools for Volunteer Mentoring, Interview Templates, Communication Strategy, and finally, Needs Assessment and Impact Evaluation. Resulting from the training sessions, 8 applications for the EU Aid Volunteers certification were submitted.

Although the EU Aid Volunteers programme was terminated in December 2020, the organizations were encouraged to apply for a Quality Label which enables them to deploy or host European Voluntary Humanitarian Aid Corps under the EU’s European Solidarity Corps initiative.  Altogether 7 partners benefited from this support.

The project was funded by the European Commission and managed by EACEA in cooperation with DG ECHO and DG EAC.