From the 20th to the 22nd the international secretariat was invited to Austria by Jugend Eine Welt for a study visit. The aim of the visit was to informs different groups of people connected to Jugend Eine Welt: staff of J1W, staff of the Don Bosco refugee project and several "ex-"volunteers.
Part of the programme were several meetings with the staff of Jugend eine Welt, seeing how DBYN could support J1W better and informing the staff what DBYN has to offer to the organisation. For this we mainly focused on the work J1W does with "ex-volunteers", volunteers who returned to Austria after a year of voluntary service. As this group is growing every year, they are now setting up structures for the volunteers so they can get involved more in the work of J1W. Every Thursday evening there is a meeting for them. This time we spoke about how DBYN could offer opportunities and support for the ex-volunteers.
We also went to visit the new oratorio at the Salesianum in the heart of Vienna. This oratorio is started up and run by ex-volunteers of J1W, and reaches out for the kids living in the neighbourhood. In other terms, the real "old school" Don Bosco youth work.
We also visited the refugee project, where we had a tailored session on project funding. For this both the staff of the refugee project as well as volunteers from the oratorio took part. We mainly promoted the opportunities of youth initiatives from the Youth in Action programme, which perfectly fit the work of both organisations.
All in all it was a full programme and a good model for future study visits. If your DBYN organisation would like to have the international secretariat to come over for a similar visit, please contact us.