StraVol.To – La gara di tutti

Volontariato Torino (Vol.To ETS)

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Organisation:

Volontariato Torino (Vol.To ETS)

Country:

Italy

About organisation:

Volontariato Torino (Vol.To ETS) is the Volunteer Support Centre of Turin, a non-profit organisation with 144 member organisations and a network of more than 1,300 associations, to which it provides services according to the Italian Third Sector Law.Vol.To is one of the five biggest Volunteer Support Centres in Italy. The organisation's mission is to qualify and support volunteers in order to enable them to seize opportunities and take individual paths of development.For this purpose, it develops projects to build tailor-made learning paths on the needs of volunteers. Since 2016, Vol.To is also the official Eurodesk Local Point/Multiplier of Turin. Vol.To works to provide free services (such as training, consultancy, planning, communication etc.) to assist associations. Vol.To’s vision is a future in which the distinctive features of volunteering will be a guide for individual and collective challenges.

Contact person:

Davide Prette

Title of the project

StraVol.To – La gara di tutti

Start date:

October 2, 2023

End date:

December 9, 2023

Source of funding:

The Stravolto initiative was financed thanks to the 2023 Piedmont Region call for contributions to support the organisation of conferences, meetings, exhibitions, celebrations and other events (under Regional Law No. 6/77). Vol.To obtained funding to support both the Stravolto and the subsequent Christmas market on 8 and 9 December, bringing the two events together within a single initiative called 'The Gift of Volunteering', organised on the occasion of the 38th International Volunteer Day.

Objectives:

"StraVol.To - La gara di tutti" is a project developed by Vol.To ETS with the assistance of the local Eurodesk point. The first edition was held on 5 December 2023, on International Volunteer Day but the organisation of the event started in October, through the recruitment of participants, communication activities and the definition of logistic details.Over 120 people took part in Stravolto, divided into 14 teams, which invaded the streets of Turin between 8.30 am and 12 pm, challenging each other in a series of dynamic and entertaining tests (e.g. photography, street art, puzzle games, poetry) with the aim of involving as many citizens as possible, questioning them about their previous volunteering experiences, in Italy or abroad, and increasing the ranks of potential new volunteers.The main objectives were to raise awareness of the presence and role of volunteers in the Turin area, as well as to promote the services offered by Vol.To and the mobility opportunities of the Eurodesk local point.According to the feedback received, the strengths of StraVol.To are the possibility of networking among different voluntary associations and of strengthening cohesion among volunteers. The three teams with the highest score were given vouchers to spend at the 'The Gift of Volunteering', a Christmas market organised by Vol.To on 8 and 9 December 2023, where local non-profit associations could show and sell their products.

Why does it correspond to the thematic category:

The Stravolto is an initiative that promotes Youth Participation and Engagement: in fact, the focus of the event were volunteers (from 18 to 28 years old) of Civil Service projects managed by VolTo and young people involved through the Eurodesk local point. The idea was to highlight the commitment and passion with which young people do voluntary work in their daily lives.During the StraVol.To, participants were encouraged to enhance teamwork, communication and leadership skills, through entertaining activities fostering cooperation and engagement.The purpose of having the challenges carried out in the streets of Turin was to make the young volunteers visible, capturing the attention of young passers-by and, through interaction with them to create an easy multiplier effect, conveying the idea that getting involved and doing voluntary work is something that, besides being useful, can be fun and contribute to the well-being of the volunteers themselves.At the pre-registration stage, participants were asked if they belonged to fragile categories and if they had any special needs to take into account. According to the answers, teams with fragile individuals among their members were assigned locations close to the starting place. In addition, the event also emphasised interculturality, as there were many participants of foreign origin, and intergenerationality, as some of the participants were senior civic volunteers (on average one per team).

The impact the initiative had on young people and the local community:

The StraVolto was conceived as a big urban flash mob to generate curiosity and interest in people and to spread the culture of solidarity at local, European and international level among citizens, while at the same time strengthening connections between volunteers.The flash-mob also represented an innovative communication action: it was based on the one hand on the real-time interaction between the teams and the young people they met during the event and on the other hand on the use of mobile devices to communicate with the Vol.To staff. The teams were asked to involve passers-by in taking photos representing values such as solidarity, unity or active citizenship and to collect testimonies of young people who volunteered locally or had had mobility experiences offered by the European Union. To increase the impact of the event the teams were asked to make Instagram stories during the event tagging the pages of VolTo and the Eurodesk local point (for a total of +30 tags during the event).The participants wore green bibs in order to be easily visible in the city streets and thanks to the interaction with the young people they met in front of the university venues, they contributed to raising awareness of the volunteering and European mobility opportunities offered by Volontariato Torino - Eurodesk local point.

How it ensured the visibility and promotion of Eurodesk:

At the meeting point of the event, in Valdo Fusi square in the centre of Turin in front of the VolTo office, there was an information desk with brochures, gadgets and other Eurodesk material that participants in the Stravolto could take at the time of registration. In addition, each team was given a canvas shopping bag with materials inside for the tests. Among these materials were Eurodesk promotional flyers to be distributed to the young people they met at the assigned locations, asking them if they knew about Eurodesk and the main youth mobility opportunities offered by the European Union. The flyers presented the local Eurodesk point hosted by Vol.To and explained how to ask for a free consultancy. Young passers-by, in exchange for a photo with the team or a like on the social media profiles of the local Eurodesk point, received a Eurodesk gadget (pen, bookmark or pin).In addition, one of the challenges was to give visibility to the Eurodesk mission by collecting audiovisual testimonies of young people who had experienced mobility (study abroad with Erasmus+, volunteering with a European Solidarity Corps project, youth exchange or traineeship, etc.) and who had been involved in a Eurodesk project. Finally, on Eurodesk's Facebook and Instagram pages, stories and posts were made before, during and after the event.

How it respected the green principles:

The StraVol.To was conceived as a low ecological impact event in several ways:- mobility: all participants arrived at the meeting place either on foot, by bicycle or by public transport. All the challenges took place in squares and streets in the city centre of Turin, and participants only walked to their assigned locations;- materials: participants were given green bibs to make them easily visible in the urban space and at the end of the trials they were handed over to the VolTo staff so that they could reuse them in future editions. Moreover, all participants were given canvas shopping bags as gadgets;- communication: to avoid wasting paper, teams sent the challenges results (photos, videos, solved puzzles, etc.) via Whatsapp to the VolTo staff. The entire promotion and launch phase of the event was also done digitally.Overall, the Stravolto aimed to promote inclusive, accessible and environmentally aware volunteering and active citizenship, promoting good practices of sustainable mobility, especially in a big city like Turin, which is among the worst in Italy for air quality. The initiative was also consistent with the strong green vocation of our organisation, which has not only developed several national and European (Erasmus+ and Horizon) projects on environmental sustainability, but more broadly adopts an ecological approach transversally to every initiative it carries out, in line with the Green Deal and the green principles of Eurodesk.

“StraVol.To – La gara di tutti” is a project developed by Vol.To ETS with the assistance of the local Eurodesk point. The first edition was held on 5 December 2023, on International Volunteer Day but the organisation of the event started in October, through the recruitment of participants, communication activities and the definition of logistic details.
Over 120 people took part in Stravolto, divided into 14 teams, which invaded the streets of Turin between 8.30 am and 12 pm, challenging each other in a series of dynamic and entertaining tests (e.g. photography, street art, puzzle games, poetry) with the aim of involving as many citizens as possible, questioning them about their previous volunteering experiences, in Italy or abroad, and increasing the ranks of potential new volunteers.
The main objectives were to raise awareness of the presence and role of volunteers in the Turin area, as well as to promote the services offered by Vol.To and the mobility opportunities of the Eurodesk local point.
According to the feedback received, the strengths of StraVol.To are the possibility of networking among different voluntary associations and of strengthening cohesion among volunteers.
The three teams with the highest score were given vouchers to spend at the ‘The Gift of Volunteering’, a Christmas market organised by Vol.To on 8 and 9 December 2023, where local non-profit associations could show and sell their products.