Rationale and Objectives

Rationale:

Interest in migrant volunteering has been rising in the past years especially in those countries with a strong civil society tradition and longstanding awareness of the key role that volunteering has for the social fabric and cohesion of society. Recognition of the fact that civic participation and voluntary action is an important cornerstone of a thriving democracy leads to a strong interest in whether immigrant communities are part of this cornerstone and, if not, what must be done to encourage civic activities in these communities.

At the same time, a major challenge identified by practitioners in the field and conclusions of the MEM-VOL project (www.mem-volunteering.net) is the lack of knowledge, data and awareness about the involvement of third country national communities in civic life, and their attitude towards, and concepts of, volunteering.

A related problem is that networks and exchange of knowledge in the field of migrant volunteering is weak, especially on a transnational European level. There is a need for exchanges of experience between migrant organisations, NGOs and national, regional and local authorities in Member States.

An additional issue is that Member States' integration policies continue to focus largely on integration to the labour market. While this is an important dimension of social inclusion, it does not address the exclusion of those migrants that are not (and will never be) involved in the labour market.

The INVOLVE project was set up to explore good practice and innovative solutions to the question of the “social integration” and “active participation” of third country nationals in the so-called host society – focusing on volunteering as an indicator and instrument of integration.

Objectives:

The 18-months project (June 2005 – December 2006) aimed at addressing the lack of knowledge about migrant volunteering, including third country nationals' concepts of, and attitude towards, volunteering and national policies and actions that facilitate these activities. The project partners identified barriers to integration and the involvement of third country nationals in volunteering, good practice examples on how to overcome these barriers and made recommendations towards policy makers and practitioners in the field on how to better use the potential of volunteering in integration policies.

It was designed to nurture trans-European networking, thus achieving increased dialogue between stakeholders, identification, exchange and dissemination of knowledge and good practices, and development of recommendations for policy changes.