How do we talk about international volunteering and should it be changed?
We would love to hear your thoughts and ideas about international volunteering service narratives and how to improve them to be more equal and inclusive! Welcome to our focus group discussion on Tue 14th November 2023 at17–18.30 at Maailmanvaihto office, Oikokatu 3, Helsinki!
The focus group discussion is targeted at those people who take part in communication work about international volunteering as well as those interested in exploring the communication work of the field. We are looking for ten participants. The discussion will be held in English.
This focus group discussion is a part of the project Decolonise Volunteering! that aims at understanding how colonial legacies and neocolonial practices and structures still affect how international volunteering is perceived and organised and making international volunteering more equal.
The input of the discussion will shared with the project. The project includes participatory action research, developing a self-assesment tool for organisations of international volunteering and a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) to support the pre-departure training of volunteers, as well as advocacy work.
The project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union and it is also supported by UNESCO Participation Programme and the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. These are not responsible for the contents of the focus group discussion event.
For those participants of the focus group discussion whose travel costs exceed 10 €, Maailmanvaihto can reimburse max. 20 € of the costs exceeding 10 €.
Safer space and Accessibility
We wish to build in all Maailmanvaihto’s activities an atmosphere in which all participants can feel welcome as themselves. To support this, we will follow in the event Maailmanvaihto’s Safer space principles.
Inside Maailmanvaihto’s office it is possible to move around with a wheelchair, but the office space is not completely wheelchair accessible: there is an approximately 7 cm doorstep at the entrance, and the toilet is not big enough for a wheelchair. Assistance dogs are welcome. We will gladly give you further information.
Registration
Please register for the focus group discussion to tiedottaja@maailmanvaihto.fi. From the same address, you can ask for further information if needed.