It’s been exactly one year since the launch of the European Solidarity Corps on December 7th, 2016, after having been announced in September by President Juncker during the State of the Union Address before the European Parliament.
Since then 42.745 young people have registered and 2.166 have obtained a placement. Among them, 16 volunteers who moved to Norcia (Italy) to help with the ongoing effort to rebuild the town hit by several earthquakes between August 2016 and January 2017. The European Solidarity Corps, however, has been developed to offer young people the chance not only to be deployed as a volunteer but also to get a job or a traineeship. Indeed, two projects led by the Italian and French Public Employment Services were kick-started earlier this year and will identify and offer solidarity-related jobs or traineeships in another EU country to up to 6,000 young people. The final aim is to have 100.000 young people taking part in the European Solidarity Corps and to do so, the Commission proposed in May 2017 to give the European Solidarity Corps a budget of more than 340 million euros for the next three years. As of December 5th, 2017, Italy, Spain and Portugal account for the highest share of young people registered.
Among the opportunities offered by the European Solidarity Corps, the Interreg Volunteer Youth – IVY gave Euroregion Baltic and The Regional Council at the Kalmar County, Lead Partner in the project CaSYPoT, the chance to host two volunteers. Here are the testimonials from the IVY volunteers currently involved in the project: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/policy/cooperation/european-territorial/interreg-volunteers-initiative/testimonials