training for serbian non-profit organizations on corporate volunteering

March 16, 2009 - On March 11, 2009 Pontis Foundation within the project Our Town organized the training for the partner organization Smart Kolektiv and for 14 representatives of Serbian non-profit organizations - orphanages and governmental agencies, who are going to cooperate with the business volunteers from Serbia. The organizations present on the training showed willingness to develop the concept in Serbia. The program of the training was designed according to the requests from our partners and it was focused on transferring experiences from Pontis Foundation in the field of corporate volunteering in Slovakia.

The trainers were Monika Smolova and Pavel Hrica from Pontis Foundation. The presentation for participants was prepared on how to lead successful volunteering projects and they were acquaint with the specific corporate volunteering initiatives organized by Pontis Foundation: project Our Town organized in Bratislava, project of assistance after hurricane disaster in High Tatras and project for renovation of Kalvaria in Banska Stiavnica. Participants had the chance to hear about functioning of the working group Engage and their activities within the Business Leaders Forum. Engage activities are dedicated to involvement of the employees from companies on volunteering activities and work for their communities.

Another trainer was Tijana Markovic, representative of the Serbian branch of Coca Cola Company. She presented to participants the experiences and activities of company’s club of volunteers established in 2005, which currently has 150 members – employees of the company.

Pavel Hrica		Tijana Markovic

In the upcoming period the Smart Kolektiv together with Pontis Foundation will continue in communication with representatives from Serbian corporate sector, which should lead to establishment of working group Engage in Serbia and to implementation of the big volunteering event Our Town in Belgrade.

The project Our Town is supported from the resources of Slovak official development aid within the program SlovakAid.