Get Involved · Local
Make a difference in your own town. Volunteer with us in Kocani, Stip, Delcevo, Strumica or Lozovo.
Local volunteering in Kocani and our four other towns: join EVEC's hands-on activities — help at day-care centres, join eco actions and charity drives, try Boccia, make radio and magazine — on a schedule that fits your life. No experience needed, just the will to help.
Why volunteer locally with EVEC
Local volunteering in Kocani: hands-on, close to home, genuinely useful.
In Kocani, Stip, Delcevo, Strumica and Lozovo, local volunteering is the in-person complement to our online volunteering — it offers what online can't: the day-care centres, the eco actions, the sports halls and the streets of our towns.
Real, hands-on work
Help at day-care centres, join eco actions, run charity drives — practical work that someone genuinely needs.
Be part of a community
Join a warm team across five towns and help us welcome ESC volunteers from across Europe.
Learn by doing
Pick up new skills — from working with people to organising events, sport and media.
On your schedule
Come when you can; we'll find something useful for the time you have.
Recognition
A certificate of participation and a reference for what you contribute.
Real impact
Your time directly supports the day-care centres, the schools and the community actions in our towns.
Honest, up front: local volunteering in Kocani and at our other branches is in-person, flexible and unpaid — not an EU-funded placement. What you gain is experience, community, recognition, and real impact.
Ways to help locally
Find your way to help.
These happen in person, in and around Kocani, Stip, Delcevo, Strumica and Lozovo. Pick what fits you — or tell us your own idea.
Help at day-care centres
Join the daily work of the day-care centres for people with disabilities in Delcevo, open since 2004, and in Stip (Novo Selo), open since 2006 — activities, occupational therapy and company, alongside professional staff.
Join our eco actions
Take part in our year-round eco calendar — World Water Day, Earth Day, car-free day and more — built together with teachers of the "Green Flag" eco-school "Rade Kratovce" in Kocani.
Run charity drives
Collect and give: paper and clothes collections, charity sports matches, and actions run in cooperation with the Red Cross.
Help at school workshops
Assist non-formal education workshops for schoolchildren and Roma youth — literacy, music, and celebrations like International Roma Day.
Boccia & sport
Help run Boccia sessions — we were the first organisation in North Macedonia to introduce this Paralympic sport, with two trained trainers — plus charity sports matches.
Radio & magazine
Get behind the microphone or the page: our team has run an online radio and a bilingual English–Macedonian monthly youth magazine. For those with the interest — no experience needed.
Welcome our internationals
Be a local buddy for incoming ESC volunteers — our Quality Label is held by the association, so a placement can be based in any of our five towns — show them your town and help them settle in. We have not hosted an ESC volunteer in North Macedonia yet, so you would be welcoming our very first.
Your own idea
Have a skill or passion you'd like to bring? Tell us — if it helps the mission, we'll make room for it.
Prefer to help from home or from another city? See our Online Volunteering page →
Who can join
What you'd actually be doing.
Not stuffing envelopes. Everything above is work someone genuinely needs — in the day-care centres, the schools, the sports halls and the streets of our towns.
Through the EVEC network we are also starting four practical methods in North Macedonia — authored by our president Blagoj Ristov and piloted at our sister organisation in Athens. Local volunteers can help us build them here from day one:
- Microgreens — a full production cycle, seed to harvest, in about ten days
- Mycelium — growing material from agricultural waste that would otherwise be burned
- Drones — starting on a simulator, then surveying real ground
- Solar energy — building small photovoltaic rigs and measuring what they produce
We are honest about where these stand: the network has run them; Kocani is starting them. You would be in at the beginning — and nobody needs to know anything about them beforehand.
Everyone's welcome.
If you live in or near Kocani, Stip, Delcevo, Strumica or Lozovo, you can volunteer with us — any age, any background, Macedonian or English speaking. You don't need experience or qualifications, just a few hours and the will to help. We welcome people with fewer opportunities and are happy to discuss adjustments so everyone can take part. Under 18? You can join with parental consent, per our safeguarding policy.
That means you
How it works
How it works.
Local volunteering in Kocani and our other towns is light, flexible and friendly — easy to start and to fit around your life.
- Flexible
- Come regularly or occasionally — we'll match you to activities that fit your time.
- Easy start
- A short chat or intro session, then you're in. E-mail us — we reply within 3 working days.
- Light coordination
- A friendly coordinator points you to where help is needed and shows you the ropes.
- Safeguarding
- For activities with young people and day-care beneficiaries we provide a short safeguarding briefing, and under-18s join with parental consent — to keep everyone safe. Read our safeguarding policy.
What you get
What you'll walk away with.
- A certificate of participation and a reference.
- New skills and hands-on experience alongside professional staff — special-education teachers, psychologists, pedagogues, social workers and nurses.
- A community and new connections across our five towns and Europe.
- A line on your CV — "volunteered with an organisation holding the ESC Quality Label."
- A possible pathway into ESC volunteering, if you'd like to go further.
Your recognition
- Certificate of participation for the time you contribute.
- Reference letter for your work with us.
- A pathway onward into ESC volunteering, if you'd like.
We'll agree the details before you start: what recognition you'll receive (certificate/reference) and what commitment we expect.
How to join
Ready to volunteer? Come and help.
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Send us a quick message
E-mail contact@evec.org.mk — tell us your town, roughly when you're free, and how you'd like to help. We reply within 3 working days.
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We invite you in — and you start
We'll invite you for a short intro and get you started.
Write to us
A plain e-mail is perfect. Tell us who you are, which town you're in, and which of the ways to help caught your eye — or your own idea.
We reply within 3 working days.
Other ways to be part of EVEC
Four ways to join.
Local volunteering in Kocani and beyond is one of four ways to join EVEC. Pick the one that fits your life right now.
Local volunteering
- In person in Kocani, Stip, Delcevo, Strumica & Lozovo
- Any age, flexible, unpaid
- Hands-on, in the community
Internship (Erasmus+ traineeship)
- On-site with EVEC
- Funded by your institution
- For students
ESC volunteering
- On-site in Kocani, Stip, Delcevo, Strumica & Lozovo
- Fully EU-funded
- Ages 18–30, 14 days to 12 months
Trust & credibility
An accredited non-profit, active since 2014.
- 17 EU projects across our network since 2015 — branch offices in Kocani, Stip, Delcevo, Strumica and Lozovo.
- Non-profit citizens' association, founded 15.02.2014 — volunteers of all ages welcome in person.
- ESC Quality Label (Hosting + Supporting) valid to 31/12/2027 — verifiable on the European Youth Portal.
- Check our numbers yourself: every project reference we publish — for example our coordinated VET mobility 2020-1-MK01-KA102-077700 — can be found on the Erasmus+ project results platform.
Keep exploring
Other ways to take part
Erasmus+
ESC volunteering
Funded, 14 days to 12 months — for ages 18–30 in ESC programme countries.
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