Centrul de Voluntariat Cluj Napoca, Romania
(Cluj Napoca Volunteer Centre)

•   Profile

The Cluj-Napoca Volunteering Centre (CNVC) was legally founded as an independent organization, in December 2004. Before this date, CNVC was functioning as a department within the ProVobis National Volunteering Centre. Through its official formation, CNVC continues and enhances, extends and innovates the activity of the ProVobis Local Programs Department. Therefore, the history of this organization is longer than the time passed from its legal inception, being based on the 8-year long experience that the employees and volunteers of CNVC hold in the field of volunteerism.

•   Main aims:

The vision of CNVC is a solidary Cluj, in which all citizens get involved in solving the problems of the community, by offering their time, knowledge, skills, energy, talents and experience for a healthier, more beautiful community. The aim is a community in which getting involved in a volunteering activity represents an accepted and shared value, for all community members. The Cluj-Napoca Volunteering Centre promotes the active involvement of each person in the community’s life, believes in the community’s capacity for self-development, through the involvement of its own members, believes in the self-determination potential of each person, advocates respecting the rights of each person, without any discrimination

•    Key partners and stakeholders involved:

The CNVC has several partners in local and national media, e.g. CityNews; UBB Radio, Cluj Expres, Radio Cluj, Monitorul de Cluj, Realitatea TV Cluj, Radio Transilvania. Besides the executive director and two project coordinators, there are 17 constant volunteers working for the projects

•  Finances:

The funders of CNVC mainly are the EU-initiative Youth on the Move, the Directorate-General Education and Culture and the Romanian initiative “Tineret” (“Youth”). Further sponsors are several local shops and plazas in Cluj

•   Members and staff:

The CNVC welcomes every citizen who intents to participate in an active citizenship for the good of Cluj and Romanian collective

•   Tools and methods of delivery:

•  offering consultancy for institutions and organisations on the elaboration of strategies regarding volunteerism
•  training and supervising volunteer managers from other organizations and institutions regarding volunteer management
•  developing own volunteering projects or in partnership with other organizations
•  offering a set of instruments useful in working with volunteers
•  informing volunteers about volunteering opportunities in Cluj-Napoca
•  guiding them in their choice of volunteering activities
•  introducing them to the volunteering topics (volunteering law, responsibilities…)
•  organizing volunteering campaigns and promotion events and also events recognizing the work volunteers do for the benefit of the local community
•   organizing training sessions for the development of volunteers’ different professional abilities

•  Volunteering projects:

Over 50 organizations and public institutions in Cluj count on the Cluj-Napoca Volunteering Centre to assist them in fulfilling their voluntary human resources needs. The CNVC takes care of recruiting the volunteers and placing each volunteer according to the needs of each organization/institution. Special programs therefore are the Volunteer training and preparation and the Volunteer coordinators’ training. Projects to promote volunteers are the Community Involvement Award Ceremony (Gala), National Volunteer Week (NVW) in Cluj-Napoca and actions meant to raise awareness in the community with regards to volunteerism e. g. mass media campaigns

•   Key policies and resources:

The organizational culture is based on the principle of direct collaboration with the organizations and institutions in Cluj-Napoca; it acts like a “resource-centre “in the field of voluntarism
Main objectives an key policies are

•  Increasing the number of volunteers within the Cluj-Napoca public institutions and NGOs;
•  Increasing the degree of the community involvement of Cluj citizens, through volunteering activities;
•  Increasing the innovation degree in the area of volunteerism (by implementing volunteering pilot projects);
•  Increasing the visibility of volunteerism among the citizens of our community

our organizational culture is based on the principle of direct collaboration with the organizations and institutions in Cluj-Napoca;
The financial resources of the funders and sponsor get to together with individual know-how and engagement of volunteers and creates successful projects

 Contact:
Cluj-Napoca Volunteer Centre
str. Rene Descartes nr. 6
Cod postal: 400486
Tel. 0264 431 411, fax: 0264 412 897
e-mail: cluj@voluntariat.ro
www.centruldevoluntariat.ro
Contact persons:  Nicoleta Chis-Racolta, Executive Director (cluj@voluntariat.ro)
Oana Raluca Ticle, Project coordinator (evscluj@voluntariat.ro)