Asociacion Juvenil Intercambia began youth work as a local youth initiative in 2004 based on the needs and interests of local youth in Málaga. Since then, the organisation has been working as a stable, official association with the mission to inspire youth to take action, realize their goals and act according to their needs.
The aim of the organisation is to support and empower youth groups, young people and individuals to be responsible and active citizens of their communities, locally and in a European level. Our organization wants to encourage youth initiatives by young people – we support them by providing information, tools, and training to help them get their goals.
Intercambia is a youth organisation created by young people for young people that promotes young people’s initiatives by supporting them, providing them with information, tools and appropriate training in order to achieve their goals. Our main activities are based on intercultural learning, by using a non-formal education and youth program actions in order to encourage the youth participation in the international context, so abolishing the barriers between countries, reducing the racism and promoting the tolerance between different cultures.
The objectives of our association are:
- Facilitate the integration of young people into society by increasing and fostering their spirit of initiative.
- Help young people to acquire knowledge, skills and abilities, and to recognize the value of each experience.
- Allow young people to freely express their feeling of solidarity in Europe and in the rest of the world, as well as to support the fight against racism and xenophobia.
- To promote a greater understanding of the diversity of our common European culture and to share both the heritage and our common and basic values.
- Help eliminate all forms of discrimination and promote equality at all levels of society.
- Introduce a European element in projects that can have a positive impact on youth work at the local level.
Our interest is to host volunteers in this framework and this is where our objectives and goals in the European Voluntary Service lie. We want to offer for European volunteers the opportunity to keep in touch with a youth organisation and the activities related to a local association in order to create learning opportunities as well as social and personal development. We are also expecting that volunteers will develop their skills through their implementation in our own projects.
Since 2006 we have started working by sending volunteers and in 2010 we started coordinating projects in Málaga. At the same time, we were sending young people to Latin America and we are currently in preparation of youth exchanges with Chinese organisations in order to promote and strengthen ties with Asian youths. Until now, AJI has hosted 16 volunteers of different nationalities accredited by the Youth in Action Programme with the number 2011-ES-126. Each year we welcome two volunteers in the European Solidarity Corps. Our coordination work includes: advisory tasks concerning the programme, following the principles in the Charter of the Volunteer, and in the Expression of Interest; dissemination of vacancies for volunteers through different networks (in addition to this, we are also one of the multipliers of the Eurodesk Network), managing the project and coordinating the funds from the projects.
We are active, sending, hosting and coordinating organisation of youth exchange, training course or voluntary programs that send abroad more than 300 youngsters. We usually host 2 or 3 projects per year of youth exchanges or training courses and we coordinate the volunteers of 7 organisations in Málaga.
Our major activities in the International Office include, but are not limited to, the following typical activities:
- Mobility programs
- Sending, hosting and coordinating ESC programs
- ESC Training Courses, national and international level
- Organization of youth exchanges within the framework of the ERASMUS + ptrogram.
- Strategic partnership. This year is the first one that we got the funds for our fist project but we have experience is these projects because we are partners of KA2 of different topics with some organisatino from Sweden, Italy, Germany….
- Capacity Buildings projects, where we have experience as partner.
- Organization of seminars, conferences, workshops and youth initiatives projects for our students
- Offering leisure activities and social and cultural integration activities for young people
- Promoting European values and cooperation among students, teaching staff and all other workers in our university
- Taking active roles in determining youth policies at the local level
- Working with young people with less opportunities in Algarrobo, Mijas, Malaga, Spain
- We organize frequently tournaments and leagues in volleyball with Ayuntamiento de Malaga
We gained skills in implementing many international projects and have experience in organizing youth exchanges, training courses, volunteers. Our organization has participated in various international projects.
We also have good organization skills and we will divide the tasks within the group to try to accomplish everything at best.
We have staff trained by Spanish National Agency and SALTO.
We are members of:
- Spanish Nation Pool of Trainers
- Salto Pool of trainers
- Eurodesk
- ERIYCA
