The network highly professional and genuinely warm
Melanie Jacobs
European Solidarity Corps (Vienna)
Researching solidarity at first.
When the European Solidarity Corps was launched in 2016, there was a degree of scepticism in the field. We had just celebrated 20 years of the European Voluntary Service—an established and highly appreciated programme among participants, organisations and national agencies. The idea of a new programme didn’t initially seem necessary.
But with the emphasis on solidarity as the core concept, and a shift from focusing primarily on the participants’ personal development to addressing societal needs and young people’s sense of responsibility, the new programme also became an inspiration. One of the first things we did at the Resource Centre was to explore the concept of solidarity as it was perceived in the youth field to create a common basis to start from. The resulting visual in form of a solidarity cake made a great appetiser for more.
Encouraging reflection and sparking discussion within the national agencies network and the wider youth field was both challenging and inspiring. National agencies were also trying to figure out how to best implement the new programme in their countries and at the same time we needed to find out how to best support this start-up phase. Since ‘solidarity’ holds different meanings and histories across Europe, it was super interesting to take a European perspective and contribute to shaping a shared understanding from the SALTO level.
Building a strong narrative around solidarity as a key driver for social cohesion.
With the launch of the European Solidarity Corps, and such a significant theme at its heart, we at the Austrian youth national agency quite quickly decided that we wanted to host the new Resource Centre. We saw a clear opportunity to contribute to building a strong narrative around solidarity as a key driver for social cohesion in European societies and in Europe as a whole. Since then, solidarity has remained high on the European agenda, and its importance has only grown. I am convinced it is here to stay—and that it needs a strong volunteering programme to support and spread solidarity from the ground up, reaching communities and citizens throughout Europe.
A big part of my involvement and impact built on my passion for European volunteering, shaped by many years of working with EVS. I’ve always been enthusiastic about and believed in the power of volunteering—not only as a transformative experience for young people, which I saw in many of the volunteers I worked with, but also as a meaningful contribution to society. It goes beyond the individual experience and concretely helps bring Europe closer to people.
That is what I look for in any future job.
I’m very grateful for the network of fantastic people all over Europe that SALTO connects. I could learn so much from colleagues and youth workers—through their creativity and innovative and needs-based ways of working, and their drive to contribute to the quality of youth work in Europe. Being part of a network that is both highly professional and genuinely warm and committed has shaped what I look for in any future job—and what I try to contribute to any team I work in.
It was super exciting to create something new through which we could support the network of national agencies.
My name is Melanie and I come from the Netherlands. The SALTO has accompanied me throughout almost my entire career in European youth work and has been an important support in much of what I’ve done. I started working in a coordinating organisation for the European Voluntary Service and my first training as a participant must have been a SOHO training for EVS organisations—I still remember how baffled I was by the non-formal methods and exercises that were new to me at the time but it made so much sense straight away.
Since then, I’ve cooperated with SALTO in many different ways: as national agency colleague benefiting from the expertise and co-organising trainings, as an EVS accreditor in the Eastern Europe and Caucasus as well as south Mediterranean neighbouring regions, and as part of the founding team of the SALTO European Solidarity Corps Resource Centre in Vienna. SALTO has been an incredibly rich network to learn from and benefit from, both professionally and personally.
Currently, I work in the cultural field, still with strong European focus, and I continue to freelance in the European youth sector.
