City volunteer centre highlighted at international seminar
Released: 14 September 2007
Wolverhampton Volunteer Centre has been invited to present its work as an example of best practice to an International seminar in the Balkans this weekend.
Wolverhampton's partner town of Subotica, in Northern Serbia is hosting the event to discuss European funding opportunities for community and business groups in the region, working with partners from Wolverhampton, as well as Norway, Switzerland and Central Serbia.
Rita Beddard of the Wolverhampton Volunteer Centre will be giving a presentation to explain the work of the local volunteer centre and its nationally acclaimed project to develop the "compact" - an agreement between public, private and voluntary sectors to work with volunteers in a mutually respectful code of conduct.
The work, which took several months to develop, was jointly delivered with the Community Initiatives Team at the council. The code of conduct and the Wolverhampton Compact documents will be presented to at the International seminar this weekend in the town hall in Subotica.
Wolverhampton has had an international strategic link with Subotica in Northern Serbia since 2001 when the Foreign Office invited cooperation from local government. Wolverhampton City Council is the lead partner in the Local Democracy Agency project in Subotica, and is the lead authority in the UK on cooperation with Balkan local government.
Current projects include a democracy training seminar with the University of Wolverhampton, volunteer exchanges and exchange of best practice on business start ups.
This is the first time that the Wolverhampton Volunteer Centre has begun working with the city’s Serbian partner town with a view to promoting and developing opportunities for young volunteers from Wolverhampton to travel and gain work experience across Europe.
Anyone interested in finding out more about volunteering opportunities in Wolverhampton or abroad, can contact the Wolverhampton Volunteer Centre on telephone 01902 572323.
Issued by the press office.