BITOLA – The second co-design workshop of the ROUTE WB6 program was hosted by the Youth Cultural Center Bitola from 28 February to 1 March. The workshop gathered 15 participants from diverse spheres of youth and volunteer work from all across the Western Balkans. The event aimed to further discuss and design the regional volunteer program to be launched by RYCO and its partners. BITOLA – The second co-design workshop of the ROUTE WB6 program was hosted by the Youth Cultural Center Bitola from 28 February to 1 March. The workshop gathered 15 participants from diverse spheres of youth and volunteer work from all across the Western Balkans. The event aimed to further discuss and design the regional volunteer program to be launched by RYCO and its partners.

The practice of co-design allowing users to become an active part of the creative development of the program entered the new phase by creating program prototypes for two identified profiles of youngsters whom the program will address. Through the processes of design-thinking as well as point of view statements and developing creative confidence, the participants created the prototypes of the volunteering program for the two target groups.

The first phase of the program prototyping included promotion, mobilization, recruitment and selection. The participants created communication and dissemination plans, mobilization tactics, as well as selection criteria for volunteers. The second phase consisted of preparation, development of activities, support mechanisms, community bonding proposals and evaluation criteria.

Both of the program prototypes were tested by the potential program users. The useful insights that arose had been taken into consideration and incorporated into prototypes that will be finalized and tested in the pilot phase, leading to the creation of the unique volunteering program in the Western Balkans.

The ROUTE WB6 project is being implemented by RYCO and six partners from the Western Balkans with the support of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It aims to promote volunteering as a mean to achieving peace and reconciliation, improving volunteering infrastructure in the region, and developing a regional volunteering program. Also, it aims to mobilize youth and use volunteering as a mean for improving inter-ethnic collaboration, while fostering values that lead to reconciliation, stability and prosperity in the Western Balkans.