CIVIL SOCIETY: 44 PRACTICES
AIESEC is the world’s biggest student-run organization aiming to enable youth to develop their leadership potential through its programs. It exist in 127 countries and more than 2400 Universities, counting more than 100.000 active members.
Read more: www.aiesec.gr
Recruitment, training, management and empowerment of volunteers in order to deliver leadership development experiences to young people through exchange and ensure longterm sustainability and growth of the organization. Apart from running operations, the program’s goal is for the volunteers at the end of their experience to:
1) Be more self-aware, knowing their purpose, their values and their passion in life.
2) Be World Citizens, showing interest for their society, locally and globally.
3) Empower others and help others, as effective and outstanding leaders. Furthermore, to be able to communicate their thoughts effectively, uniting and leading teams towards achieving a common goal.
4) Be solution oriented.
Students and recent graduates up to 2 years, 18-30 years old.
The vast majority of the members are aged 18-23 years old.
Since 1956, AIESEC has members-volunteers. ACT Program has been launched since 2010 and it's packing since 2013.
Volunteers recruitment is implemented twice per year, every September-October.
ACT (Achieving Change Together) is AIESEC’s team members program, that AIESEC has developed for recruiting new volunteers. It’s devided in 3 sectors, aimed to support and ensure proper exchange operations:
• Marketing & Promotion of programs for students [Global Citizen (Volunteering Abroad Program) & Global Talent (Internship Abroad Program)].
• Customer Experience Management: Customized support and preparation for Exchange programs Participants. In adition, CEM members also deliver LEAD sessions to Exchange Participants, aiming to enable them to develop their leadership skills during their exchange program
• Sales: Fund raising in order to ensure financial sustainability of the organization and its programs and raising positions for interns in NGOs, schools or professional internship in greek companies.
After recruitment, volunteers can take on leadership roles in order to organize operations of AIESEC chapters. The three main categories of volunteers are:
• Members: Volunteers that are part of teams and work in one of the above sectors.
• Team Leader: Responsibles for team management, co-ordination and goals achievement.
• Executive Boards: The management teams of an AIESEC entity (could be local/university chapter, national or international).
The members & team leaders positions last usually 2-6 months in a sector and then the participants can apply for anothe team/sector as member again or team leader. Also, once per year they can apply for AIESEC Local Committee Executive Board member.
The Executive Board positions last one year and each member is responsibile for a specific function (e.g. Global Citizen/Global Talent Manager, Marketing Manager, Finance Manager, HR Manager etc.). When the term ends, the Executive Board members can either apply for Local Comittee President or Members Committee Vice Presidents (responsible for leading & managing all AIESEC chapters in one country).
In each role there is special transition and education from predecessor to new member/Executive Board member. Also, there is a transition period, where successor and predecessor work together, with the first one taking more and more responsibilities, and the second one supervising and providing feedback and support.
Finally, for all levels there are education cycles, aiming to enrich knowledge and increase productivity of the members. Apart from technical knowledge, based on the specific position, a lot of emphasis is given on personal and leadership skills development.
Education and development of the volunteers is happening through conferences for members, team leaders and management teams, special trainings to Local AIESEC Chapters and also webinars.
On average, AIESEC offers 600-700 team experiences through the ACT program. Apart from the 4 leadership skills mentioned before, members also gain valuable experience by working in a challenging but safe environment and managing real resources (finance, people etc.). They have the opportunity to experiment, succeed and fail, improve on professional and personal level through constant feedback, try out new things that they might have never considered before, meet people with common interests from all over the world and mainly offer to other people, having this way big impact on society. It has been noticed that after their member experience, AIESEC Alumni:
• Are more keen for volunteering and want to bring impact to society.
• Show more interest to CSR activities.
• Are more active and efficient in personal and professional level (University, workplace etc.).
• Are more open to diversity and care about global issues.
• Often take initiatives to impact positively the society or start their own start up.
Since AIESEC’s vision is Peace & Fulfillment of Humankind’s Potential, the empowerment and development of its volunteers is one of the basic pillars of the organization. In addition, with proper education, standardized processes and packaging the team member program as “ACT” in 2013, the organization has seen big growth in operations and increased significantly the number of leadership experiences it offers through exchange. Finally, since the organization is managed by volunteers, their proper management and recruitment of new volunteers is a vital element for AIESEC’s long-term sustainability.
No Connection with Global Goals found
