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General Objective: Making volunteering more inclusive and representative of society as a whole.

 

Specific objectives:

• Concerning the European Democracy Action Plan, we aim to protect and promote the meaningful participation of citizens and empower them to make their own choices, based on free will, to act in solidarity to respond to the needs they see around them. We build capacity in our members and partners to stand up to any trends that lead to shrinking civic space or threaten our democratic systems.

• We aim to empower more people to volunteer and build capacity in the volunteering sector for increased inclusiveness and in this way strengthen democratic participation, bringing citizens closer to the EU in line with the objectives of the “new push for democracy”.

• We have a particular focus on making volunteering more inclusive and representative of society as a whole, involving the full diversity of genders and other discriminating factors and reducing traditional divisions between the “helpers” and the “helped”. In this respect we are linking our activities closely to the: Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025; EU anti racism action plan: EU Roma strategic framework on equality, inclusion and participation; LGBTIQ Equality Strategy; and the upcoming EU Strategy on combating antisemitism. With this focus, we aim to ensure that volunteering is as open and as accessible as possible, removing barriers to participation, thereby encouraging and enabling broad and diverse participation.