On 21 September 2026, International Day of Peace, CCIVS held the first session of IVS Dialogues, a new series of online meetings about International Voluntary Service. The session, “Volunteering for Peace: What IVS Is and Why It Matters”, brought together speakers from IVS networks in Asia, Latin America, Europe and Africa, as well as volunteers, organisations and people interested in volunteering for the first time.
The session started with the history of the movement. The first IVS project took place in 1920 near Verdun, France, where volunteers from countries that had fought each other in the First World War worked together to rebuild a village damaged in the war. In 1948, CCIVS was founded under the aegis of UNESCO to coordinate the growing movement. Today the network has 178 members, including four international networks. Two current areas of work were also presented: the Volunteer Rights document, created in the Voices for Change project, which deals with barriers such as visa restrictions and unequal access to funding, and a digital certification system being developed to recognise the skills volunteers gain in IVS projects.
Member networks then presented projects from their regions. SCI India shared the Slum to Stadium initiative in Maharashtra, where more than 900 children from slum communities play football every day and also receive non-formal education, counselling and life skills training. ICYE Ecuador presented Fundación Alas de Colibrí in Quito, which runs a shelter for girls aged 12 to 17 who are survivors of human trafficking and provides them with housing, psychological, educational, medical and legal support. The Alliance of European Voluntary Service Organisations and its member VJF presented the Never Forget workcamps at memorial sites of former concentration camps in Germany, where volunteers learn about the past and discuss discrimination and intolerance today. Speakers from Africa introduced the idea of Ubuntu, “I am because we are”, and shared examples such as conservation work in the Maasai Mara in Kenya, food gardens created on former dumping sites in South Africa, and a regional caravan that took volunteers through Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
In the last part, speakers answered questions from participants. CCIVS does not recruit volunteers directly. To join a project, volunteers can use the CCIVS map to find a sending organisation in their own or a neighbouring country. In most projects, food and accommodation are covered and volunteers pay for their own travel, but conditions differ between projects. There are also online options for those who cannot travel, such as the Human Library initiatives in Hong Kong and Malaysia. Volunteers who have returned from a project were encouraged to stay in touch with their sending organisation and take part in further activities.
IVS Dialogues will continue roughly every two months, each time with a new topic. The next session will focus on the Volunteer Rights framework: why it matters and how you can get involved. Follow CCIVS on social media to be the first to hear the date.
A warm thank you to all speakers, organisers and everyone who joined!
Missed the session or want to revisit it? Watch the full recording and download the presentation below.
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