On 12th and 13th December, Eurodiaconia held a training workshop on EU funding and project management, hosted by our member Sleszka Diakonie in Cesky Tesin, Czech Republic. The aim of the event was to give participants better knowledge of EU funding instruments and programmes, and to enhance capacity in the area of project management. Participants came from Sleszka Diakonie, and from our other members organisations in Czech Republic, Serbia and Armenia. The first day of the training introduced Eurodiaconia and its project work, and presented project management approaches and methods. The group also took part in a ‘visualization’ exercise for their project development. On the second day, the Eurodiaconia project team gave an overview of EU funding instruments, looking at the Multi-annual Financial Framework. This also included a more in depth look at specific funding programmes such as Erasmus+, the European Social Fund, and Horizon2020, as well as concrete examples of past and current projects from the Eurodiaconia network.
Throughout the two day workshop, participants had the chance to get involved with interactive activities to deepen their knowledge and skills of funding and project management, and to practice working with EU calls for proposals and funding documents. The group also had the opportunity to visit Sleszka Diakonie’s facilities and learn more about the work done by our member on working with the elderly, with families and with people with disabilities. We look forward to future training and learning opportunities to enhance the knowledge, exchange and capacity building of our members.