Young Slovenian volunteers in European programs prefer to choose their home country

Postojna – On the International Day of Young Volunteers, an event dedicated to youth work and the presentation of European programs Erasmus+ Youth and the European Solidarity Corps was held in Postojna, located about 50 kilometers southwest of Ljubljana. As reported by the non-governmental organization Mreža MaMa, which unites and represents organizations in the field of youth centers in Slovenia, Slovenian volunteers still prefer Slovenia for their voluntary work among EU countries.

Both European programs in the field of youth achieve good results with small investments, they emphasized. Since 2021, 1,368 volunteers have been planned in volunteer projects at the Movit Institute, which is also the national agency for both European programs, with Slovenia being the preferred choice for their voluntary work among all EU countries. By the end of March this year, 981 had realized their volunteering. At the pan-European level, 64,160 volunteers were planned in volunteer projects during the same period, of which 47,002 have already completed their volunteering.

The largest number of young people coming to volunteer projects in this programming period in Slovenia are from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Turkey. Slovenian volunteers involved in both programs, besides Slovenia, prefer to choose Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Poland, and Croatia.

In Slovenia, since 2021, over 25.5 million euros have been allocated in the framework of both programs in the field of youth, during which 645 projects have been accepted, submitted by 252 different organizations. Since organizations collaborate with other partner organizations in the projects, the total number of all involved organizations is 1,091. (April 15)