Francesco Ruberto: "The main aim of PROJUVEN is to create opportunities for young people"

First of all, what is Projuven and what is the mission of the organization?

The main aim of PROJUVEN is to create opportunities for young people who would like to be an active, try and learn something new and gain new experience and knowledge for personal and professional development.

We foster the dissemination of information about the initiatives and opportunities promoted by the European Union in different fields, through both internet and social networks, and organizing specific public events. Some of our objectives are to promote young mobility, intercultural exchange, volunteer and social cooperation among youngsters, to stimulate the exchange of ideas and experience, mutual understanding, and equal rights and opportunities among youth in Europe as well as to promote active citizenship and solidarity. 

In what sense do you manage tools for the digital management of volunteers?

Being active in digital education and relying on volunteers in our organization is fundamental. Consequently, one of our priority is to empower youth workers and volunteers to fully exploit all the potentials of digital education and digital skills, as well being able to transfer those skills to low skilled young people in our community.

Do you have very interesting project on this topic. Could you explain some of them?

Some months ago, we finished our KA2 project 'eSkills for Volunteers', a Strategic Partnership in the field of Youth, supported by the Erasmus Plus programme of the European Commission and INJUVE Spanish National Agency. The project was coordinated by PROJUVEN with the collaboration of the following partner NGOs: Associazione di Promozione Sociale Futuro Digitale (Italy), Associao Intercultural Amigos da Mobilidade (Portugal) and Asociatia GEYC (Romania).

Another project in which we are working actively in the digital field is the KA2 Strategic Partnership 'Volunteers 4 ALL', coordinated by the Bulgarian NGO Alternativi International, where partner NGOs are PROJUVEN, Futuro Digitale (Italy) and OEJAB (Austria). The digital tools that NGOs use in their refugee work and the digital tools which refugees use during their journey.

What other initiatives or projects are organized in Projuven?

PROJUVEN is working in different fields, dealing with many projects. Our favourite topic is the digital one but we also work on topics such as entrepreneurship, youth unemployment, project management (mainly focus on Erasmus Plus projects), prevent radicalization of young people, raise public awareness about refugees and asylum seekers.

How is the level of digital technology among volunteers?

All youth workers working in PROJUVEN have good knowledge of digital tools while the level of volunteers coming to our organisation is very different. Indeed, we can state that we have volunteers very skilled and at the same we have volunteers with no knowledge at all of digital tools. For last ones, we organise periodically several workshops about the use of different digital tools where we explain to volunteers with no knowledge how to use them and how they are important for their social and professional life.

You have collaborated with an initiative organized by the Catalan project Turn Online. How do you value this experience?

For us being partner in TURN ONline project is a great chance to exchange good practice and learn new things, collaborating with professional NGOs from all over the Europe. During the project, project consortium realized different researches regarding the needs of youth NGOs in Europe, elaborated online platform for promoting digital tools among young people and professionals, organized workshops in each partner community, had two training events where youngsters learn about the importance of online activism and digital tools for non-formal education as well as prepared the digital guidelines 'Digital tools for non-formal education'.

In addition, I would like to mention the upcoming conference that will be held in February in Barcelona where partners will present the final results of TURN Online project.