A community does not happen by chance. It takes time, preparation and constant attention to the group and to the place that hosts it. This is the starting point of the Handbook about Communities in ESC Team RISE projects, a new free publication by Associazione Joint APS that collects the strategies tested in four European Solidarity Corps Volunteering Teams across Italy.
The handbook is a result of RISE – Road to Inclusion and Solidarity in Europe, a project coordinated by Joint within the ESC Volunteering Teams in High Priority Areas (VTHPA). RISE brings young people from all over Europe, many of them with fewer opportunities, to short and intense volunteering experiences in Italy.
Two questions every ESC Team has to face
The handbook is built around two challenges:
- From a group to a community: how do we turn young people with very different backgrounds into an inclusive community, where everyone is fully included?
- Involving the local community: what role can local people play in an ESC Team, with which potential and which limits?
Four Teams, four places
The answers come from the RISE Teams hosted in 2026 by four Hosting Organisations, each in a very different setting:
- Ostello dei Balocchi (Ligonchio, Reggio Emilia) – a one-month Team in an isolated mountain area of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, where volunteers cared for donkeys, ran a cyanotype workshop with village elders and went on a two-day trek that opened doors in local shops and villages.
- Ostello Parco Monte Barro (Galbiate, Lecco) – a one-month Team inside a regional park, where volunteers joined local residents in a years-long effort to protect migrating toads, and learned from farms and Park volunteers.
- Cooperativa One (Crotone, Calabria) – a two-month urban Team in the historic centre, working on food recovery with the Camper della Speranza, on land confiscated from the mafia and with migrants and unaccompanied minors.
- Cascina EUtopia (Casaleggio Boiro, Piedmont) – a six-week Team renovating a farmhouse to make it a safe, inclusive place for future volunteers, and entering village life from day one through the local festival.
Each chapter follows the same structure – context, strategy for an inclusive group, how differences in language, culture, autonomy and needs were included, and the role of the local community – so the experiences can be easily compared.
Practical tools, honest results
The handbook is not a theory book. It describes activities step by step – the arrival training, the Rules Agreement built with volunteers, the World Café on the territory, “Mission Impossible”, the Circle of appreciation – along with the voices of volunteers and the results of their evaluations.
It is also honest about what did not work. One Team faced real tensions around chores and communication, and the handbook reports it openly, because difficulties are also a learning tool for whoever organises the next Teams.
The final chapter gathers three pieces of advice from each Hosting Organisation for anyone running their first ESC Team, and answers a key question: how far should community involvement go? The short answer: a few quality collaborations, with concrete tasks and clear timing, are worth more than many meetings.
Who is it for?
The handbook is for youth workers, ESC Hosting and Supporting Organisations, mentors, trainers and anyone who works with groups of young people. It is meant to be used as a toolbox, not a recipe: adapt the activities to your volunteers, your territory and your resources – and always give volunteers a voice in the process.
Download the Handbook about Communities in ESC Team RISE projects (PDF)
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
