The goal of the project “Volunteering, certification for employment” was to promote an effective system of methods, instruments, procedures, validation rules to access the skills and competence acquired by the volunteers who work in the NGOs from at least 5 counties from the South-eastern region of Romania (Galati, Braila, Tulcea, Buzau, Constanta). These could then be acknowledged and valued at employment so volunteering would become an attractive activity for youngsters in their need for professional training. 

The project meets the need of professional development of volunteers and of acknowledgement of their work experience acquired in the practical and specific volunteer activities.

The present project responds to this need through specific activities carried out at two levels:

1.    At the NGOs level through:

• a research at national level, entitled “The development stage of the training, evaluation and validation systems and certification of the skills acquired through volunteering in Romania”.
  
• 7 activities of focus group with 105 volunteers from 6 partner organisations from the South-eastern region of Romania, aimed to analyse the training, evaluation and validation methods and the certification of non-formal learning.
  
• a national seminar held between 28 April – 2 May 2010 in Constanta with youngsters from NGOs; representatives of the National Volunteer Centres Network with experience in the project topic; and public authorities responsible for youth policies with the purpose of presenting models of good practice in the training, evaluation and validation of the volunteers’ skills and drawing up a system of criteria, conditions, and standards which must be met by these methods in order to be validated as work experience at employment.
  
• local meetings during 3 days in Galati, Braila, Tulcea and Buzau, at each of the 6 project partners, as well as a local seminar in Constanta, with the purpose of drawing up local policies regarding the validation of non-formal learning through volunteering and adopting the system of instruments to the local needs.
  

 2.       At the employers’ level by applying questionnaires and interviews in order to clarify the criteria by which they hire people, the skills that are important to them, and the requirements/suggestions they have on how the voluntary sector does the training, evaluation and validation of the volunteers’ skills as to be recognised by employers.