The project Beyond Borders: a Pan-African approach to international voluntary service is co-organised by SCI’s International Secretariat and key partner organisations in the Sub-Saharan African region, with support from UNESCO’s Participation Programme and the Africa Working Group of SCI.
Its main activity is an African Volunteer Summit in Nairobi, Kenya from 9-14 June 2025, as well as the creation of a video and the inauguration of a regional Volunteer Caravan.
The Background
This project proposes deconstructing and reconstructing international voluntary services from an Afrocentric approach. It will build capacity for voluntary-inspired organisations across Africa, so that they will be able to enhance and promote south-south cooperation as opposed to the current scenario where most depend heavily on volunteers from the global North for survival.
Voluntary service is seen as a tool for the transformation of volunteers and the people they work with, having an influence on their conscience and the way they construct the societies they live in. Volunteering is a way of practising active citizenship and youth leadership, taking responsibility for the globe we live on without wasting resources. The work project is seen as a tool to achieve active solidarity, as well as mutual and intercultural dialogue and non-formal education.
The volunteers do not come as experts, who are supposed to teach a local population. The relation between the volunteers and the people they work and live with is based on reciprocity and exchange. The sharing of everyday life with the local community as well as among the international volunteers (in the case of group projects) is an integral part of the learning experience.
The Objectives
Promote Storytelling and Knowledge Sharing
Empower Women in Leadership and Engage Young Men in Gender Equality
Enhance South-South Cooperation and Support AU Volunteer Linkage platform
Equip Youth with Climate Justice Knowledge and Skills
Decolonise International Voluntary Services (IVS)
Motivate Co-Creation of Action Projects
The Activities
African Voluntary Summit (Nairobi, Kenya), June 2025
This meeting will bring together in Kenya, relevant stakeholders to discuss concretely the strengthening of IVS in Africa, from an Afrocentric, decolonial standpoint. In particular, it will focus on the necessity of gender equality in the IVS sector, and the potential of IVS to empower (young) women in personal (confidence, leadership), social (community development, engagement in social issues), and economic (soft and hard skills development) spheres.
The Summit seeks to address the evolving landscape of international voluntary services with a focus on South-South cooperation and exchange. As countries increasingly recognize the value of local knowledge and experiences, it is essential to shift the paradigm from traditional North-South volunteer models to inclusive and collaborative approaches that empower African nations and their communities. The primary objectives of the Summit are multiple faceted namely inter regional integration, south-south youth exchange as well as building prosperous and peaceful Africa through youth empowerment, volunteerism and pan Africa exchange as well as scaling up global, regional, and national actions to meet young people’s needs, realize their rights and tap their possibilities as agents of change. The community services programme is targeted at young people working in the local community and other civil organizations implementing development/ workcamps activities in East and Southern Africa.
This summit seeks to support programs for inter-African volunteer exchanges (including the African diaspora) based initially on the existing network of volunteer associations, most of whom are members of the Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service (CCIVS), based at UNESCO but it could include many other partners. The work of these organisations is often complementary to larger actions and campaigns set up by inter-governmental institutions and provides a practical way to disseminate their aims and ideas through action and reflection at the grass-roots level.
Documentary Video
