Safeguarding

Safeguarding & Participant Protection

EVEC Kocani sends young people abroad through Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps, and runs youth activities here in eastern North Macedonia. Some of them are under 18, and much of our network’s daily work is with people with disabilities. This page explains what we do to keep participants safe, who is responsible, and how to raise a concern.

Who this covers

• Participants in youth exchanges and training courses, including those aged under 18
• European Solidarity Corps volunteers hosted by EVEC in any of our five towns — the Quality Label is held by the association, so a placement can be based in Kocani, Stip, Strumica, Delcevo or Lozovo
• People with disabilities taking part in our activities, including the beneficiaries of the day-care centres our network works with in Stip and Delcevo
• Trainees and interns on placement with us
• Local and online volunteers
• Our own members, volunteers and trainers, and any partner working with our participants

Our commitments

• Participants are treated with respect regardless of age, nationality, gender, disability, religion, sexual orientation or background.
• Harassment, bullying, discrimination, and any form of physical, emotional or sexual abuse are not tolerated.
• Activities involving people with disabilities are planned with accessibility in mind. Our members include special-education teachers, psychologists, pedagogues, social workers and nurses, several of them staff of the day-care centres our network works with.
• Concerns are taken seriously, recorded, and acted on — not dismissed or handled informally.
• Nobody is disadvantaged for raising a concern in good faith.

On hosting. EVEC holds a European Solidarity Corps Quality Label for hosting and supporting, valid to 31/12/2027. The label is held by the association, so it covers all five of our towns — Kocani, Stip, Strumica, Delcevo and Lozovo; Kocani, Stip and Strumica are also registered in their own right on the European Youth Portal. We have not yet hosted an ESC volunteer in North Macedonia. What follows is written as rules, not as history: these are the standards our Quality Label commits us to, they already apply to every participant in our other activities, and they apply in full from the first hosted volunteer’s first day.

Before an activity

• For any role that involves working with people under 18 or with people with disabilities, we request a recent criminal-record certificate issued by the competent authority in the person’s home country.
• Everyone joining us receives a safeguarding briefing during orientation, covering conduct expectations, boundaries, and how to report a concern.
• For participants under 18, we require written parental or guardian consent before the activity, per our safeguarding policy, and we agree supervision arrangements with the sending organisation.
• Volunteers with fewer opportunities may come with an accompanying assistant, and accommodation is wheelchair-accessible where needed.

During an activity

• Every hosted volunteer has a named personal mentor with regular one-to-one time, an emergency contact and a Macedonian SIM card, so there is always someone to call — including outside working hours in an emergency.
• Weekly evaluation meetings give every volunteer a regular, private moment to say how things are going. Where a volunteer wants support beyond what a mentor can give, we arrange it: our members include psychologists, pedagogues and social workers, and we refer to local services where that is the right answer.
• Accommodation and activity venues are chosen with participant safety in mind.
• Where an activity involves minors, supervision responsibilities are agreed in writing with the sending organisation before arrival.
• Where an activity involves people with disabilities, tasks are planned and supervised together with the professionals of the host setting, such as the day-care centres our network supports.

How to report a concern

Email contact@evec.org.mk, marking the message Safeguarding. It reaches Blagoj Ristov, President, who is the accountable person for safeguarding at EVEC Kocani.

If your concern is about the President himself, or you would simply rather it did not reach him, write instead to Filip Nikolovski, Project Coordinator at EVEC Stip: erasmus@evec.org.mk. Your message goes to him and not to the President, and it is handled under this same policy, to the same timescales.

Tell us what happened, when, who was involved, and what you would like to happen next. If you prefer not to give your name, we will still look into it, although that can limit what we are able to do.

What happens next:

• We acknowledge within 2 working days.
• We agree immediate steps to keep the person safe.
• We look into what happened and tell you the outcome. If it will take longer than expected, we tell you when to expect an answer.
• Where a criminal offence may have occurred, we contact the Macedonian authorities.

If you are not satisfied with our response

For activities funded by Erasmus+ or the European Solidarity Corps, you can escalate to the National Agency for European Educational Programmes and Mobility (MK01) in Skopje, which supervises our quality label:

• European Solidarity Corps Quality Label (Hosting & Supporting) — valid to 31/12/2027, OID E10119353, verifiable on the European Youth Portal

You can also use our complaints procedure for anything that is not a safeguarding matter.

Online volunteering

Our online volunteering programme is open and recruiting. Because it runs through shared documents rather than in person, the arrangements differ from a hosted activity. The rules below apply to every online volunteer, and to any online task we give a young person.

Registration. A young person can send us the interest form themselves. From that point nothing happens without a parent or guardian: no task is given, no document is shared, and no drive access is granted until a parent or guardian has given written consent, per our safeguarding policy. Until then the only thing we hold is that first enquiry. If consent is not given within 14 days, the record is deleted.

What a parent can see and do. A parent or guardian is a commenter on every document their child works in. They can read everything, at any time, and help if they want to. They also receive a private, view-only summary that updates automatically: level, tasks given, what has been submitted, and the reviewer’s feedback. The young person is told this, so they know what their parent can see.

How we communicate. Everything happens inside the shared task document. No private messaging, no group chats, no personal phone numbers, no contact through social media. The reviewer is named in the document, so the volunteer knows who will read their work. Every document sits in a shared drive to which the President has access, so a second adult is always present.

Contact between volunteers. Volunteers under 18 are not put in contact with other volunteers. There is no forum and no chat.

Reviewers. Only adults review a young person’s work. Reviewers receive the same safeguarding briefing as our members, and the criminal-record requirement above applies to them.

Photos and video. Where a volunteer produces photos or video, we ask separately for permission to use their first name, to show their face, and to tag a personal social media account. These are three different things, and each can be refused without affecting the others. Volunteers are asked never to include anyone else’s face without written permission, and never anything that shows where they live or which school they attend. Location data is removed from every file before it is used.

Withdrawing. A parent or guardian can withdraw a young person at any time, without giving a reason. The same day, access to every document is removed and the record is closed. Work already published stays published, but the credit line carrying their name is removed on request.

Turning 18. A parent or guardian keeps the right to raise concerns and to withdraw their child at any time until the young person turns 18. From 18, the volunteer manages their own participation.

Concerns about online volunteering are raised in exactly the same way as any other — see the top of this page. Questions? Contact us or write to contact@evec.org.mk — we reply within 3 working days.

Responsibility and review

Accountable person: Blagoj Ristov, President and legal representative of EVEC Kocani — European Voluntary and Educational Center Kocani (ЕВРОПСКИ ВОЛОНТЕРСКИ И ЕДУКАТИВЕН ЦЕНТАР Кочани), a citizens’ association registered in North Macedonia, EMBS 6938566. Registered office: Ul. Boris Trajkovski 42, 2300 Kocani, North Macedonia. EVEC Kocani is the data controller for personal data handled under this policy.

This policy is reviewed at least once a year. It applies across our branch offices in Stip, Strumica, Delcevo and Lozovo.