Press Release

Mentoring and Befriending Foundation wins bid to develop new European Charter

Wednesday, August 20 2008

The Mentoring and Befriending Foundation has secured a major partnership contract to develop a Charter for mentoring and befriending across the European Union.

A Third Sector organisation, MBF has been instrumental in securing the bid from the Grundtvig Partnership under the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning programme.

MBF will team up with partner organisations in Estonia, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Spain and Belgium.

Steve Leach, Deputy Chief Executive of MBF, which supports 3,000 voluntary and community projects in England said: "The Charter will act as a framework for programmes across the EU and develop a consistent and accessible set of European materials and guidelines to support good practice throughout the EU.

"We recognise that mentoring and befriending involves a three-cornered learning relationship between the client, the volunteer and the co-ordinator and we will develop common principles and guidelines for setting up and improving programmes of volunteer mentoring and befriending and shared opportunities for learning."

The Charter will act as a guideline for future work on learning and teaching/training/instruction materials in volunteer mentoring and befriending.

Key elements of the 2 year partnership are:-

· A European-wide network.

· An agreed consistent set of quality standards.

· A website to promote the work of the group.

· European launch to promote the European Charter.

The Grundtvig Programme offers a "passport" to partnerships and training opportunities for adult education organisations, teachers and learners. It is part of the European Commission's Lifelong Learning Programme and aims to strengthen the European dimension in adult education and lifelong learning across Europe.

Grundtvig provides funded opportunities for organisations to develop pan-European partnerships across 31 European countries.