User:Silvia bruni1/sandbox

The European Solidarity Corps (ESC) is an initiave program launched in December 2016 by the European Commission. Its aims are to offer solidarity-based jobs, traineeships or apprenticeship to young people from the European Union. These missions can be voluntary or paid work and are all around the world.

History of the project
On September 4th 2016 Jean-Claude Junker announces the idea of a European solidarity corps in his speech about the States of Union. He presents the two principal goals of it: creating opportunities for young people and giving them the possibility to have experience reinforcing the European solidarity: «There are many young, socially minded people in Europe willing to make a meaningful contribution to society and help show solidarity. We can create opportunities for them to do so […] These young people will be able to develop their skills and get not only work but also invaluable human experience».

The program starts in December 2016. National Agencies and SALTO-Youth network are the ones that control offers for the European Solidarity Corps. The program is one option avalaible from Erasmus+.

Goals and objectives
One of the major goal that European Commission wants to reach with this new corps is to reinforce the European identity by using solidarity. Young people involved in solidarity activities can also improve their skills, competences and experiences as well as facilitating their employability and transition into the labour market.

By 2020, the ESC envisions to meet its goal in placing 100,000 participants. For the 2021-2027 period, the new goal will be of 350.000 participants.

Issues
The participants can work in many issues: disabilities, minority groups, refugees and migrants, natural disaster prevention, healthy lifestyles and active aging, employment and entrepreneurship, assistance.

Joining the European Solidarity Corps
Potential recruits for the European Solidarity Corps may fall into three categories:


 * 1) Volunteering activities are open to all people between 18 and 30 years old who also reside in a EU member state or in one of the following countries: North Macedonia, Turkey, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Norway, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, etc.
 * 2) Jobs and traineeships are open to EU member states residents. Both of them are full-time work practises, paid by the employing organization, lasting between 3 and 12 months (for jobs) or 2 and 6 months (for traineeships). Traineeships are renewable only once.
 * 3) Solidarity projects are is open to people residing in the EU member states, Iceland, North Macedonia, and Turkey. They "are initiated, developed and implemented over a period of 2 to 12 months by at least five young people who want to make a positive change in their local community"

Inside of the volunteering activities there is a subdivision of two types distinguished between individual volunteering and volunteering teams. The first one is an unpaid full time volunteering with a duration from two to twelve months, the volunteering can be inside of their own country or abroad. The second one, volunteering teams, consists on projects in which groups of 10 to 40 solidarity corps volunteers from at least two differents countries. The volunteering team projects have a duration of 2 weeks to 2 months.

Funds
Budget or 2018-2020 is €376.5 million. For the next budget period, 2021-2027, the Commission proposed a budget of €1.6 billion. The Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources, Günther H. Oettinger, justified this budget by the increasing demand of young european to be part of solidarity activities. As outlined in the proposal, this budget would be formed by a contribution of six programmes. The financial allocation available for in-country activities is indicatively set at 20% of the budget available.

Criticism
European Youth Forum and the The German Association for Public and Private Welfare both point the same issues: first the European Solidarity Corps should help the integration of young people with difficult background or disabilities; also they both ask for a better distinction between voluntary and occupation strand. The European Youth Forum has made some proposal to improve ESC in their Updated position on the European Solidarity Corps. Florian Sanden, head of European Union Office for Catholic work and adult education, criticizes the fact that the European Commission promotes European Solidarity Corps as a mean for young people to improve their chances to be employed, rather than focusing on personal development of the participants and on solidarity itself.