Volunteering is an active expression of civic participation that helps in strengthening the common EU values such us solidarity and social cohesion. The final report on Volunteering in the European Union (2018) shows that the highest number of volunteers are detected among adults aged between 30-50 y.o. But what happens with 50+ generation? Senior citizens are an important part of the European society, culture and lives and their experience could be an added value to any local and/or international project for civic participation. So, how can be ensured that these citizens are socially included and can enjoy their rights as EU citizens? How to give them new and more stimulating learning opportunities at European level?
The over-50s need to feel engaged in civil society organizations and volunteering activities, as they need to feel useful for the growth of their society. Their huge wealth of experience can't be lost, but must be valorized as the engine for future successful initiatives for social development, an incredible resource for the whole community.
In this context, the ERASVUS+ project aims at reaching the following OBJECTIVES:
 

1/ to contribute to the development of competences of the educators and staff members working with adults, specifically with the over-50s
2/ to create new opportunities for learning for the over-50s, through European mobilities for volunteering (LTTAs)
3/ to establish a network of European Institutions cooperating in the education of seniors.
 

ERASVUS+ aims at creating a space for bringing together different generations to discuss and promote European volunteering opportunities for senior citizens. Thanks to the adoption of an intergenerational approach, some young people will share their experience as EU volunteers (in programs like EVS, European Solidarity Corps, EuropeAid,...), while the seniors will give them back their great wealth of experience and their specific knowledge.
The project will allow local communities, involved in the exchange of the over-50s volunteers, to tap into the potential of senior citizens as a source of know-how, expertise and experience.
The interaction between the elderly and the youth can be considered one of the expressions of social innovation to encourage active aging. This interaction is a new way of socially-based working on a specific conceptual framework. It is in fact assumed that the number and type of interpersonal relationships are some of the determinants of active aging, as suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2002). In addition, recent studies have shown that the most active older people are those able to give and receive (in all aspects) in associative and primary networks, that is, in the families, where people belonging to different generations are spontaneously and naturally present.
In this process, the role of the civil society organizations and the educational Institutions in general is crucial. The staff members (facilitators, educators, teachers, tutors, etc...) must be adequately prepared for creating EU Volunteering Opportunities for Seniors, accompanying them in discovering and taking advantage of European mobilities for volunteering, through the Erasmus+ program, among all. Staff members need also to get acquainted with the adoption of informal and non-formal methodologies for the education of seniors in an European and intergenerational learning environment.
In order to be sustainable, this process must include the possibility, for the seniors who have taken part to a volunteering project, to give something in return to their communities, contributing to the implementation of new European senior volunteering activities. They could become mentors of the next senior volunteers, thus stimulating and supporting the newcomers in their lifelong learning paths at EU level.
The importance of carrying out the project TRANSNATIONALLY lies, among all, in the following assumptions:
1/ the exchange of practices among the partnership could be really fruitful; as they work in completely different socio-cultural contexts, this sharing could be definitely inspiring and the organizations could adopt successful "foreign" approaches and methodologies, possibly adapting them to their specific learning contexts.
2/ the senior learners, through their participation to the LTTAs (blended mobilities - volunteering activities), can be involved in an intercultural learning process, where the implementation of intergenerational activities with foreign youth could give them also the possibility to acquire new skills and competences, such as communication in a foreign language.
The final output of the project, the “ESV - European Senior Volunteering Guidelines”, will then represent also the recommendations on how to manage international volunteering projects for seniors, focusing on their need and expectations and by taking into consideration the effectiveness of the intercultural and intergenerational aspects of the learning paths.