ESC: Volunteering with International Young Naturefriends

International Young Naturefriends (IYNF) is an international organisation, which brings together young Naturefriends and their organisations from across Europe. Established in 1975 and currently has 17 member organisations and 12 partner organisations thus gathering more than 120.000 young members in more than one thousand local groups. The core role of IYNF is to facilitate the cooperation between its member and partner organisations and individual members by creating links, organizing meetings, providing direct support and promoting nature-friendly activities all over Europe. IYNF focuses on value-driven meetings and capacity building activities (4-5 per year)for its members, partners, supporters and interested individuals. The main target groups are young people, youth leaders and youth workers as well as the IYNF member organisations. IYNF gives young people a space for their personal, socio-educational and professional development by offering volunteering, participatory and training activities. The main topics of IYNF are climate change and democratic education which are directly linked to the IYNF red (solidarity, respect, democracy, equality, peace and internationalism) and green (sustainability, love and care for nature and environmental education) values. IYNF is furthermore implementing all its activities on a non-formal education basis which corresponds to its blue values (non-formal education, personal development and youth work). Every year IYNF is setting a topic of the year which is following the mentioned core topics. For 2021 IYNF has the topic of climate justice as its main focus where IYNF is carrying out an educational cycle consisting of 2 educational activities and an international conference on climate justice education. Additionally, IYNF is carrying out a volunteering team activity “Eco heroes” within the ESC frame in Italy in August 2021. For its projects, IYNF is partnering with its members and partners but is also striving to build new cooperations with other organisations. IYNF is governed by the Presidium, which consists of elected representatives of its member organisations. IYNF Secretariat takes care of the implementation of the IYNF Strategic Plan and IYNF Work plan and is based in Prague, Czech Republic. IYNF has also been more and more active in advocacy work and is regularly attending COP. In 2019 IYNF joined GCE (Generation Climate Europe), which is the first environmental coalition of youth-led organisations in the EU. GCE has an important role in a dialogue of EU climate law. The main scope of the IYNF activities is to provide environmental, social and political education through the methods of experiential and non-formal education. Implementing the ESC volunteering activities targets these core values of IYNF and is connected to the fields of this project format such as “environmental protection, climate change mitigation and greater social inclusion”. The voluntary work is crucial for the implementation of IYNF activities, and the volunteers play a key role in IYNF activities and also strategy formulation. The best example for volunteering is the IYNF Presidium as these elected volunteers are guidning the organisation for around two years and decide upon the strategy and workplan together with the statutory bodies. Also the European Solidarity Corps volunteers ESC) and the internships do fall under this category. Over the years, EVS and ESC programmes have become an important part of IYNF work, its sustainability and created a perfect working culture and environment that is equally beneficial for IYNF and volunteers. The main target group for volunteering activities for IYNF lies between 18 and 30 years with a main focus on young people from weaker socio-economic backgrounds that wouldn`t have the chance to otherwise join international activities. IYNF sees volunteering as a beneficial opportunity for the young people to develop further but also as a chance for the organisation to learn more about different working habits and intercultural aspects and on how to include this in the everyday life of an organisation. IYNF usually hosts two volunteers (three until November 2021) for one year as this is the time that is needed to get the most out of it (getting settled, getting to know the local culture and community and learning the language). IYNFs volunteering term usually starts in the beginning of the year (January or February). IYNF also acts as a sending organisation to send young people abroad and will prepare them accordingly. In the end of their placement abroad, the aim is to bind them on a long-term basis and give them the possibility to become mentors for new arriving volunteers. The same applies to the team volunteering activities where IYNF is coordinating and supporting its members and partners in the implementation of the projects as well as sending volunteers to other activities to give them the chance to gain international experience.