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Community Xchange is a volunteer programme that has developed within the Global Xchange partnership between the British Council and VSO.
Community Xchange was developed to provide a sustainable tool for connecting with communities and existing GX youth programmes. It also offers the opportunity for people that have already been involved with GX programmes, e.g. volunteer placement supervisors, and community members, the chance to be part of a professional work exchange.
The vision of the Community Xchange programme is to develop active citizens globally who make a positive difference in their own and other communities. We do this by bringing together formal and informal community leaders where they can work in each other’s societies to learn from one another.
In January 2010, a pilot programme of Community Xchange will take place in Davao.
- build active networks and dialogues in communities in Philippines and the UK
- support the participation of large numbers of young people globally as active citizens
- deliver benefits to communities by strengthening existing community development initiatives
- promote community cohesion and encourage community participation
- increase the effectiveness of community leaders in facilitating learning and positive social action
- promote intercultural dialogue
- disseminate the learning from the exchange to the wider community
- strengthen relations between the UK and the Philippines
Community leaders who belong to the participating communities in Davao and are passionate about learning and working with others to help communities participate.
Volunteering means giving your time, energy and skills to help other people, communities and societies. Through helping others, participants are actually helping themselves by:
- experiencing the real world through hands-on work and meeting different people
- developing new skills like team-working when you work with others to achieve a goal
- returning to the community some of what it has given you
- feeling motivated with a high sense of achievement
- boosting your career with new skills and knowledge – a career change perhaps?
- discovering new hobbies, interests, talents
- building your networking opportunities
- inspiring others around you!
Worldwide, Community Xchange works with teams of up to 30 community leaders, with equal numbers coming from the UK and an overseas partner country. Participants work in host communities for 3 weeks in the UK and 3 weeks in the overseas country, making Community Xchange an innovative programme offering formal and informal community leaders the opportunity to develop professionallybyparticipating in acounterpart exchange programme.
Over the course of an exchange participants take part in professional development modules, work attachments, shadowing and community events to promote active citizenship among young people.
A key supporting product of Community Xchange is the Community Learning Framework. This is a set of principles and tools designed to inform and support community leaders working with communities. The core principles of the Community Learning Framework are to help identify community learning from involvement in community activities and to be able to positively measure their impact.
The volunteers will also understand social development, especially in governance issues of both the informal community structures and formal local government structures.
This experience will give them the insights, knowledge and awareness that they can’t find easily in books.
Living with a host home and family in a different country gives the volunteers the real experience of a different culture. It’s real work that helps make a difference to people living in challenging conditions.
Volunteers are expected to concentrate on their personal goals and to think about how to help their host communities.
Each leg of the exchange visit will be three (3) weeks.
Please write to Norie Garcia of VSO Bahaginan for more information.
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