Objective 10,000″ “

“Pilot experiences” of community service for the youth of various European countries, both East and West, “to make them fall in love with Europe and educate them in participation and citizenship”: this was one of the proposals that emerged from the round table on “Community service for an active and caring European citizenship”, held in Rome in recent days, on the initiative of Volunteers of the FOCSIV-world and the School of International Cooperation and Development Policy (SPICES). The basic idea is to extend the experience of community service as far as possible in the various countries, in order to educate the young in active and conscious citizenship. But what exactly is community service and what is its situation in Europe today? YOUTH ENGAGED IN SOCIAL ACTIVITIES IN SUPPORT OF THE MORE VULNERABLE, or in defence of the environment, and of the cultural and architectural heritage: the fields of action of community service are in fact many. On the basis of this choice a young person can choose to dedicate a year of his/her own life (paid) to this experience. Italy is the leading country in Europe in community service, with 38,000 volunteers (in 2001 there were only 150) and 30,000 conscientious objectors still in service. “No country has so many youngsters involved on this front – says Cristina Nespoli, president of CNESC, the council that brings together the Italian agencies that organize community service for the young -. Community service is a method of active defence of the territory, quite different from volunteer service as generally understood. It responds to precise rules, and is covered by a constitutional provision”. Indeed, according to the Italian law abolishing compulsory military draft that comes into force on 31 December 2004, community service in Italy will become even more important: young volunteers will be given the choice of whether to undertake this experience for a year or enter the army instead. 3500 YOUTH PER YEAR IN EUROPEAN VOLUNTEER SERVICE: obJECTIVE 10,000. But “there aren’t many European countries that make provision for a service of this type”, explains JENS Mester, of the Youth Unit of the European Community -. There are no official data on the matter, but after Italy comes Germany with some 15,000 volunteers, while similar experiences also exist in France, Luxembourg and Lithuania. At the European level (extended to 31 countries including Turkey), the European Volunteer Service has existed since 1998, with 3500 youngsters per year currently involved and a budget of 33 million euros (for further information, consult the European Portal for youth in various languages: http://europa.eu.int/youth/). “Our objective is to reach a figure of 10,000 youth”, hopes Mester. “At the present time – he emphasises – the Union’s most important priorities include the promotion of European citizenship. Having a European passport does not mean being European citizens. There are very few people who experience Europe in their daily life and youth mobility is still limited”. In the field of volunteer service, he adds, “we would like to establish common criteria for all the volunteer service organizations of the various countries, with more transparency in the services they offer and less obstacles in the experience itself”. The more recent innovations include the possibility to accept even young people from non-EU countries for the European volunteer service: “The political agreement has already been reached – announced Mester -. All that’s needed are the final details to incorporate it in national legislations and establish the rules for the visits of young volunteers to Europe”. WHAT “EUROPEAN PEACE CORPS”? Another hotly debated question is the establishment of a “European peace corps” composed of young people to perform humanitarian activities, for which provision is made by the European Constitution. But this proposal “needs to be spelt out in greater detail – says Primo Di Blasio, coordinator of the volunteer and formation sector in the FOCSIV-world – because we would like it to be incorporated in the sphere of youth policies, with a primarily formative aim”. The round table in Rome served in fact to “prepare for a meeting scheduled next autumn, during which European ministers and representatives of civil society will discuss how to foster community service at the European level”. “We don’t want community service to become just a period of apprenticeship before starting work – says Di Blasio -, nor a human resource that governments may use to solve social problems. For us it has essentially an educational purpose: its aim is to ensure that we will in future be able to rely on active and caring European citizens, capable of tackling the problems of the territory. The most useful thing would be to realise ‘pilot experiences’ for Eastern European youth to come to the West and vice versa”.