Changing Perspectives: Incoming Voluntary Services

Voluntary service organisations in Germany are becoming increasingly internationally based. More and more placement organisations are seeing that working and learning together with an international ‘incoming’ volunteer is an essential part of their own development to become more open to other cultures and change their perspectives. An overall goal of these projects is the strengthening of interpersonal exchange between people from Germany and other countries around the world. But what is really behind it all? What are the personal experiences and impressions, and what is the impact on individuals? What opportunities, and obstacles, do they report back? This publication, produced within the framework of the project FSJ INcoming from the GLObal South (INGLOS), addresses these questions. The three-year project, sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ), aims at strengthening interpersonal exchange with young people from countries from the Global South. A further focus is the promotion of inter-cultural work in placement organisations.

[This publication is also available from AKLHÜ in German, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian.]