ESC: Sow, Share, and Serve: Volunteer for Change

B-LIVE is a non-profit association and is a member of REAS Spain, the Social and Solidarity Economy Network, which is composed of more than 500 entities. The association is also a member of RIPESS Europe (Intercontinental network for the promotion of social solidarity economy). Our mission is to provide children, teenagers and adults, as well as local and international public Administrations, with the following services: - project management and development; - organization of training courses, workshops, exchanges and cultural, environmental, artistic activities; - sector study, research; - e-learning; - networking, partnerships. B-Live has realized more than 20 national projects and 6 European projects, especially with Youth in Action and the Erasmus Plus programme (KA1, KA2). Our entity co-operates with many public Administrations thanks to a variety of agreements for the diffusion of culture as well as social and solidarity economy in juvenile and adults’ activities. B-LIVE has a wide experience in the field of youth and uses highly qualified facilities to carry out its activities: training courses, meetings, apprenticeships, youth exchanges or initiatives, workshops, conferences, meetings, etc. In the past, the association has participated in several projects in the framework of the Youth in Action Programme and, more recently, in the Erasmus + Programme. Its staff comes from different educational backgrounds and fields of study, such as: social and solidarity economy, youth in action, environment, media, human rights, European citizenship, feminism, minority-majority relationship, etc. All of the key members of the team, whenever they have the chance, take part in several training courses, at local and European level, based on non-formal education to improve their skills and competences as mentors and facilitators. Since 2016 the association has been promoting the importance of Erasmus+ to allow more and more organizations to benefit from the programme, as well as to create their own projects and organize or participate in educational activities. The staff of B-LIVE has a long-lasting experience about European projects management, social entrepreneurship, promotion of social inclusion of disadvantaged people and sharing of skills and best practices. Every person of the key staff can count on: - Specific skills in the field of the project development; - Previous experience in European programmes; - Skills in managing team and transnational activities; - Skills acquired in the course of different courses and workshops; - Cultural skills useful to carry out the scheduled activities; - Good knowledge of foreign languages. The staff members have successfully managed several projects in educational and cultural activities. The association can also count on experienced trainers who have already worked on previous programmes and have the competences and motivation to help improve the quality of projects within the Programmes of the European Union. The members of the team have the professional preparation to understand and facilitate individual and group learning processes, as well as the competence to design educational programmes, and to direct one's own learning (Learning to Learn) and international competence. The structure of our organization is divided into two areas. The social one and the operational one. The mission of the social area is to encourage the active participation of the members, involving them directly or indirectly in the activities promoted by the entity and collecting the proposals promoted by the partners themselves. It is also the function of the social area to maintain contact with social organizations and in general with the associative fabric in the different territorial areas and participate in the networks that B-Live integrates, such as the Red de Economía Solidaria (Solidarity Economy Network) or Banca Ética (Ethical Banking). The operational area is the branch of management, execution and administration of all intervention activity and provision of services of the entity. It is organized into sections: planning and management, execution and monitoring, administration and external relations, and quality. The planning and management team is fundamentally the direction of the entity. In it, decisions are made and organizational and operational strategies are defined. The team is made up of professionals and partners of the entity with experience in management and the specific work areas that concern the activities carried out: training and volunteering, social-cultural intervention, solidarity economy. The functions of the administrative section include mobility management in the specific case of European projects, accounting and justification in general. This section has the external collaboration of a tax, accounting and legal advisory.