TOGO NATIONAL VOLUNTEERING AGENCY

TOGO NATIONAL VOLUNTEERING AGENCY

Capital town : Lomé Population : 7.4 Million Area : 56 785 Km2 National Day: 27 April 1960 Head of State: Faure Essozimna GNASSINGBE Currency : Franc cfa ( 1euro=655.957cfa) Official language: French National language : Ewé, Kabyè

CONTEXT Togo, our country is coming from a long journey due to the socio political crisis started in 1990s. This situation brought a hard period and the country underwent a difficult shortage of financial resources.

The partners went away and things became difficult for our country to fight again joblessness of the youth. There was also lack of qualified human resources.

From 2005s a new period began with a new political leader. Like many other underdeveloped countries, a new system has been applied to find out a solution related to joblessness.

The policy is called SCAPE in French with the purpose to help the youth to get job experiences. The purpose is to promote citizen commitment of the youth through volunteering program.

It is from there that, thanks to the will of the national leaders, heading by the head of State M. Faure Essozimna GNASSINGBE, the national voluntary program was born. The purpose is to promote citizenship commitment among young people and help them gain job experience and contribute to sustainable development of our country.

THE BEGINNING OF NATIONAL VOLUNTEERS PROGRAM The program started in 2011 and at least 300 young people were mobilized in public sector. By the time being many young people are being recruited and sent in civilian sectors as well as public sectors.

SWEAR OF THE FIRST VAGUE OF VOLUNTEERS

For a mean time, we have 10 vague with 6291 national volunteers among whom 2131 women that gives 34 percent. These national volunteers have been sent throughout the five districts shared as followed:

THE SHARING OF VOLUNTEERS THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY DISTRICTS NUMBER OF VOLUNTEERS PERCENTAGE (%) SAVANNAH 220 5 KARA 564 13 CENTRAL 435 10 PLATEAUX 548 13 MARITIME 387 9 LOME COMMUNE 2158 50

NUMBER OF VOLUNTEERS AND PERCENTAGE 220, 5% Savannah 2158, 50% 564, 13% 435, 10% Kara Central 387, 9% 548, 13% Plateaux Maritime Lome Commune

THE PROGRAM BECAME AGENCY BY DECRET Considering the presidential decision N 2014-151/ PR of 9 July 2014, the program became an agency. After new strategies as far as functioning are concerned the agency has its own strategic plan for the five coming years.

To carry out this five-year strategic plan, the agency has adopted the policy since 11 June 2015. Following the demand from everywhere and for the agency to meet the need of everybody, it decides to work through four main types of volunteers:

TYPE 1 Junior volunteers We recruit qualified jobless young people. These people come from many levels like secretaries, jurists, agriculture, health, communicators, sociologists and we send them to the areas where the demand and needs are formulated. This strategy is being applied now.

VOLUNTEER IN MISSION

TYPE 2 Non qualified Volunteers We shall recruit by 2016 semi qualified people or the school leavers and those who didn t go to school before. The aim is to give them training on citizenship, solidarity, respect of common thing, nation values in order to make them participate to activities for common interest. Here 2000 volunteers will be recruited every year for the next five years.

TYPE 3 Senior Volunteers This type concerns elder people meaning those who are in retirement. The purpose is to share their experiences they have gained during their careers with young people. We are planning to recruit 200 retired people by year and 1000 by 2020.

TYPE 4 International volunteers This type concerns the Diaspora and those in the previous 3 types. In fact we will recruit natives and send them to all over the world. At least 500 young people will be sent to abroad by the agency.

CHALLENGES Today, the main challenge that we are facing is the high demand of youth to participate in this program(around 40 000 at the end of August 2015). To run our activities, we need to diversify our source of funding. The agency is for a time financially supported by the government. We are now looking for private support to cover our needs and respond more to the youth s request.

Within the agency, we have also to strengthen the human resources capacity in terms of financial resources mobilizing, communication and relationship and social network management in order to develop efficient strategies for a good input.

We have to mention that today another big challenge is to communicate well to clarify that volunteering is not employment but it contribute and ensure appropriate monitoring and support for volunteers.

CELEBRATION OF INTERNATIONAL VOLUNTEER S DAY 5 DECEMBER 2014

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR ATTENTION!!!