On September 30 and October 1, 2025, Santa Maria da Feira (Portugal) hosted the kick-off meeting for VolunTrek, an international initiative funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ program that seeks to professionalize volunteer management across the continent.
The VolunTrek project has officially begun with a clear mission: to make volunteering in Europe work better. During two days of intense work in Portugal, the consortium partners defined the roadmap for the next 24 months, focusing on improving how organizations prepare, welcome, and accompany adult volunteers.
A strategic alliance between four countries
The success of VolunTrek lies in the collaboration of expert organizations from Spain, Portugal, Poland, and Serbia. Each partner contributes a key element to the development of the project:
- Portugal: Cáritas Portuguesa and Rosto Solidário (hosts of the meeting).
- Spain: ASPAYM Castilla y León Juventud, responsible for leading the project’s Quality Plan, ensuring that all results meet the highest standards.
- Poland: Regionalne Centrum Wolontariatu (RCW) in Kielce.
- Serbia: Caritas Serbia, responsible for the communication and visibility strategy.
Three pillars for change
To transform volunteer management, VolunTrek will work on three fundamental lines of action:
- Professional training: Training association workers and technicians in advanced volunteer team management techniques.
- Creation of a digital toolkit: Development of manuals and interactive guides so that any European entity can learn, step by step, how to properly prepare an adult volunteer.
- International cooperation: A networking system where one country’s learning is shared with the rest, allowing all organizations to improve simultaneously.
