European Voluntary Humanitarian Aid Corps

The objective of this call is to select pilot projects that will support the Commission in the process leading-up to the establishment of a European Voluntary Humanitarian Aid Corps

through the implementation of pilot actions. The pilot actions shall test some of the possible modules of the future Corps and inform the European Commission's work setting up the Corps.

For the purpose of this call, three different Lots shall be attributed to achieve results in the following areas:

• Lot 1: Strengthening resilience

• Lot 2: Building civil protection capacities

• Lot 3: Responding to disaster

The main expected results for all three lots are: 

• To provide opportunities for Europeans to engage as volunteers in humanitarian aid and / or civil protection activities outside the EU and to contribute to laying the grounds for a community of European volunteers active in this field;

• To develop training curricula for volunteers in humanitarian aid based on best practice of humanitarian organisations and with a particular focus on the European dimension;

• To add value to humanitarian aid operations in the fields of resilience, disaster risk reduction, crisis response and post crisis recovery through volunteering and by promoting partnerships between organisations active in humanitarian aid and / or civil protection operations;

• To strengthen local capacities in countries in order to support resilience and/or response to crisis.

Additional results expected for lot 2:

• To promote partnerships between humanitarian organisations and civil protection organisms;

• To provide support to structures involved in civil protection activities in countries outside the EU.

Additional result expected for lot 3:

• To provide opportunities for expertise from the EU public or private sector to be made available in crisis response.

For lot 1, the volunteers shall be contributing to strengthening resilience, i.e. building capacities in disaster risk reduction and post crises recovery. The deployment of volunteers should be for periods from 4 to 12 months.

In lot 2, volunteers shall have a background in civil protection and shall be deployed in projects aiming at contributing to building civil protection capacities in third countries. The deployment of volunteers should be for periods from 4 to 12 months5. The deployment of groups of trained civil protection volunteers is encouraged. Any specific training provided under the pilot projects should be complementary to the trainings organised under the Civil Protection Mechanism. In lot 1 and 2, volunteers will be working with local communities or local organisations such as local authorities (municipalities, provincial services), local NGOs etc. and preferably placed in those local organisations.