Abstract:

The European Union (EU) horizontal priorities envisage improving relevant and high-level basic and transversal competences of EU citizens, in the scope of adult education and under the perspective of lifelong learning. Side-by-side with other methods, Europe can achieve this by capacitating new leaders for change engagement, improving entrepreneurial, foreign language and digital skills and fostering employability, socio-educational and professional development through Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) action. A participatory society can only work when citizens are well informed, actively engaged in civic activity and equipped with the skills of advocacy, debate, compromise and leadership. Tangible benefits for the environment, the region and local communities can be obtained only if the NGO leaders’ and social and green activists’ basic skills and competencies on leadership, citizenship and NGO action are improved. Towards this purpose, adequate and adapted motivational educational support-materials should be provided to them. The paper presents the findings from a field-based research achieved in seven EU countries in the framework of the Erasmus+ project “NGEnvironment: Foster European Active Citizenship and Sustainability Through Ecological Thinking by NGOs” financed by the European Commission. The research aimed at identifying the ‘motivational’ preferences and needs of NGO leaders and of social and green activists, regarding the characteristics of educational support-materials to be designed and used for improving their skills and competencies as leaders and role models for other citizens.

The research results are to be valorised within the NGEnvironment project in the development of appropriate educational contents and formats for:
(i) specific tools of the Engagement Toolkit;
(ii) training modules of the course “Induction to Pedagogy for NGO staff”;
(iii) training package for social and green NGO leadership.

The research was achieved through questionnaires applied to representatives of three target groups, namely potential new NGO leaders, existing NGO leaders and staff members, and social and green activists.

Keywords:

NGO, leaders, motivation, education, support-materials.