ESC: A language without barriers

The Talentum Foundation for the Support of Volunteering non-profit organisation was founded in 2002 with the aim of providing support and help for volunteers through trainings, counselling, and also to provide various services for the volunteers and for the organisations welcoming those volunteers in the Southern region of Hungary. Our organisation has three main fields of activity: 1. Volunteer Centre of Csongrád County: The centre’s mission is to encourage members of society, by representing and advocating the domestic culture of volunteering, to take part in volunteering activities. Main permanent activities of the volunteer centre: - Recruitment and mediation of volunteers - Maintaining a database of the hosting organisations - Advertising the culture of volunteering on events and professional programs - Counselling/advising regarding volunteering - Providing preparatory trainings for volunteers and hosting organisations Thematic volunteering programs - organising volunteering actions - organising onferences - conduct researches - operate thematic volunteer groups (volunteering in museums, theatres, hospitals, residential neighbourhoods, with the elderly, and multiplier volunteering). The Volunteer Centre is active in the advocacy of volunteering and also in spreading and organising cross-sectoral cooperation, corporate volunteering. The Foundation operates as the Volunteering Point Network of Csongrád County (members are, among others: Algyő, Szentes, Hódmezővásárhely, Mindszent). Talentum Foundation is a member of the European Volunteer Centre (CEV), and we also participate in the work of the EURODESK. Since 2014, we are an accredited EVS (European Solidarity Corps since 2018) sending, hosting, and coordinating organisation. Within our various long-term projects we usually host two volunteers from countries of the European Union and from Erasmus+ partner countries. Besides that, we organise short-term projects as well on a regular basis from camps with 10 people to projects with only 2 people. More and more university students from third-world countries contact us in order to be volunteers here in Szeged. We started an African volunteering project, in which we have cooperated already with students from Malawi and Kenya. 2. Talentum Intervention and Methodology Centre: The centre’s mission is to improve civil and non-profit institutes and organisations in the county through trainings, professional programs, events, and workshops. The centre has an active connection with civil organisations and institutions in Szeged. The Foundation regularly organises professional programs, for example „civil market”, workshops of cross-sectoral cooperation, and it has strong connections with other Hungarian civil organisations located in Romania and Serbia. 3. Labour Market Service Centre: The centre’s mission is to improve human resources so that the unemployed or the people seeking employment may become motivated, value-oriented, long-term employees. We organise comprehensive guidance trainings for high school students, applying non-formal methods and providing opportunities for job-shadowing. The Foundation’s trainers have several years of experience in the field of non-formal education and labour market. Since 2019 the Foundation - on the request of the Hungarian Education Office – takes part in the development of a Hungarian volunteering validation modell.