The educational portal motivus.eu is dedicated to counteracting the negative phenomenon of burn-out, stress and decrease in motivation of volunteers of non-governmental organisations, who work with children. The percentage of volunteers resigning from work for non-governmental organisations involved in children support, is very large.
The recourses placed on the portal are the result of two projects in the A/M area regarding strengthening of volunteers. There is a thematic connection between both projects, but each of them affects other contexts.
The project “Motivate. Support. Strengthen. Educational Programme for Volunteers Working with Children”
The problem: burn-out, stress, decline in motivation, and even depression of volunteers of non-governmental organisations as a result of a coping with difficult stories of pupils - children in a difficult situations or with a traumatic past. The most common indicated cause is too big psychological load leading to reduced well-being and even depressive states. Initial enthusiasm to help often evaporates quickly.
The project adresses the needs of these persons by providing a universal, modular training programme for volunteers, using the experience of Norwegian NGOs, collected in a good practice report and including tools that enable precise selection of training modules for a specific case (Guide for Trainers).
The project "Motivus - Resilience and Motivation in the Times of Crisis. E-learning for Volunteers Working with Children."
The problem: new difficulties on the part of organisations working with children in the form of a limited possibility of physical contact between volunteers and pupils and on the organisation-volunteer line during the pandemic period. The current situation of war in Ukraine being a crisis situation for many NGOs working with children will also be taken into account. Managing motivation of volunteers in the crisis period due to the lack of physical contact or the excess of work and difficult, overwhelming situations is a particularly up-to-date topic.
The project adresses these needs by creating an e-learning course - also based on Norwegian and Polish experiences - which enables on-line training and work with volunteers in this form, on how to deal with motivation in times of crisis and how to be creative and flexible about working methods during such periods.
The portal presents valuable and specific training content and tools, thanks to which, non-governmental organisations can strengthen and motivate their own volunteers, vulnerable to burn-out, which will translate into their better and longer work for the benefit of final beneficiaries - children in difficult life situations.
All results developed within both projects are being made available under the Open Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, which will allow partners to retain their own copyrights while sharing developed materials with others. All results are available in the "learning Resources " tab.
