C-IVS Skills and YC Meeting in Paris | By Raksha V Shenoy K
In the first week of March 2026 (2.03.2026 to 07.03.2026) I landed in Paris, walked into the UNESCO Building for the second time, but this experience felt entirely different.
This was the first in-person meeting of the new Youth Committee (2025–2027), and for me, a continuation of my second mandate as a YC member nominated by FSL India. There was something special about that moment. I’d call it familiar yet something new. Faces I had met online were now real, conversations felt more grounded, and the sense of responsibility felt stronger.
And at the centre of it all was a question many of us have carried for years: How do we make visible what volunteers truly learn?
I noticed over and over again that one idea kept returning i.e., “Volunteering is learning”. Of course this learning could be formal at times but mostly it’s through lived experiences. Some of my fellow YC members shared their experiences in the IVS movement stating, as a volunteer “I learned to adapt to unfamiliar environments” , “I understood how to navigate cultural differences through kitchen duties” , “I learned to work with people who think and live differently” . But then again the question, “How do we bring recognition to these things we learned?” .
That’s why we were there. We were in Paris to co-create the first draft of a certification framework that can translate these experiences into competences that are understood beyond the IVS space.
The reason this meeting felt different was due to the people who were present. There were youth representatives (Youth Committee Members), Technical Experts (CCIVS Network organisation members, Experts from Universities across different regions incl. Africa and Europe), the CCIVS Secretariat (incl. EC member) and of course UNESCO delegates from the Education sector as well as the Youth section of the Social and Human Sciences sector. During this, I genuinely felt that the voices of the youth were actually taken into consideration in discussions and dialogues.
One of the meaningful parts for me was bringing in perspectives from India. I shared reflections around personal social responsibility (PSR). It’s the idea that volunteering is not just about helping others, but about understanding our own role in the systems we are part of.
In many ways, volunteering creates space to pause and question the paths we are often expected to follow:
- What does meaningful work look like?
- What kind of impact do I want to have?
These conversations made me realise how different our contexts are, yet how deeply connected our experiences feel.
Parallel to the technical discussion, this meeting was also important for us as a Youth Committee.Being the first in-person gathering of this new mandate with new faces and new energy (though we couldn’t have all the YC members in a single space). It gave us the space to start building and shape how we want to work together over the next two years and this was not just as individuals but as a team (as CCIVS Youth Committee).
We had conversations around: Strategic alignment with CCIVS projects, our priorities as YC, how we could strengthen communication, collaboration, as well as accountability within the team and boost the visibility of the committee and the organisation along with promoting the IVS Movement.
This meeting focused on building Version 1.0 of the framework. There’s still a long journey ahead like testing, refining, many meetings, discussions here & there while also ensuring all these remain accessible and inclusive. But on a personal level, this experience felt like a reminder. That the work we do in volunteering matters. That the skills we gain are real. And that recognition, if done right, can open doors without taking away the essence of volunteering.
