SAMARITAN Forum 2013 – Focus on Volunteering

At the 7th international SAMARITAN Forum on August 22 in Berlin about 120 Samaritans discussed international cooperation and cross-border volunteering.

Representatives of the European Samaritan organisations met in ASB’s representative office in the German capital for the 7th international SAMARITAN Forum. The focus of this year’s conference was on volunteering, following its motto “Active Volunteering for a European Civil Society” or “AVEC”. “After all, voluntary engagement is in a state of change and has to be seen in the European context” commented Christian Reuter, Secretary General of SAMARITAN INTERNATIONAL and managing director of ASB Germany.

Exchange of experience

The event brought together poltical and project-based cooperation from 15 countries. Together with guests from other European civil society organisations and networks in volunteering, such as CEV, Volonteurope or SOLIDAR, roughly 120 Samaritans debated the issues “Quality in Volunteering”, “Active Volunteering in Civil Protection” and “Civic commitment in domestic care settings” and defined first steps to deepen their cooperation. The groundwork laid at this year’s Forum is planned to continue over the next two years with additional events under the AVEC motto. “The exchange of experiences from practical projects is highly important and of great significance for the success of future projects” stressed Knut Fleckenstein, President of SAMARITAN INTERNATIONAL and chairperson of ASB Germany

Illustrator provided special conference support

The entire confernence was illustrated live by Mike Klar. The Illustrator has a degree in visual communication with a focus on  illustration and graphics and studied at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and École  d’art et de Design Genève and works as illustrator, live drawer and graphics  designer. Since 2007 he is a member of the artist group ILLUMAT.

The working group results are available here.

SAMARITAN’s B.E.S.T. Awards

SAMARITAN’s B.E.S.T. international

The Forum was also the occasion to decorate extraordinary projects of Samaritan organisations with the SAMARITAN’s B.E.S.T. awards for the first time. The international SAMARITAN’s B.E.S.T. went to the project “Beltsamariter” of ASB Schleswig-Holstein and Dansk Folkehjælp.

The trophies were presented by their creators, the workshop for the disabled in Zeesen. The prize money of 3,000 € was donated by UNION Versicherungsdienst GmbH and personally given to the winner in the form a cheque by UNION representative Andreas Sauer.

Here you can find a video clip of the project Beltsamariter:  http://youtu.be/UXDv5CgWU5w

The Grundtvig project Volunteering in European Non-Profit Organisations (ASB, ASBÖ, ASSR, LSA, LSB, SFOP & WK) achieved the second place and the project Volunteering Forever and at all Age (ASBÖ, ASSR, LSA, LSB and SFOP) the third place.

SAMARITAN’s B.E.S.T. local

The first SAMARITAN’s B.E.S.T. local was awarded to Weißes Kreuz from South Tyrol for their volunteering campaign “Werde Teil von uns” (“Become a part of us”).

The winner received a trophy and a prize money of 3,000 €, donated by the ASB.

Have a look to the winner’s video clip here: http://youtu.be/UDxoxyE5eAw

For further information please go to SAMARITAN’s B.E.S.T. AWARD 2013.

A big “Thank you” to the workshop for the disabled of Zeesen

We would like to thank the workshop for the disabled  Zeesen of ASB Mittel-Brandenburg for the creation of the trophies for the awards SAMARITAN’s B.E.S.T. local and international. The prices are awarding an extraordinary corss-border project cooperation and a “best practice’ of the menbers of SAMARITAN INTERNATIONAL!

Here you can see the Video Clip of the creation process:  http://youtu.be/LWz2ldH_Q6U

A photo gallery of the 2013 Forum is available here.