SLEsoN Website - The founding members

THE FOUNDING MEMBERS:

Red Española de Aprendizaje-Servicio (Spain)
Verein Zentrum Service-Learning Schweiz (Switzerland)
International Association "Interactive open schools" (Bosnia and Herzegovina Service-Learning Network, also representing the Central and Eastern European SL Network)
Stiftung Lernen Durch Engagement (Germany)
Selegro Association and New Horizons Foundation (Romania) -as initiators of the Romanian Service-Learning Network
INDIRE Istituto Nazionale di Documentazione, Innovazione per la Ricerca Educativa (National Institute for Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research) and the Postgraduate School Education for Encounter and Solidarity EIS of The Libera University Maria Ss. Assunta, LUMSA - Italy and in process of creating the Italian Network
Foundation Zentrum fir Politesch Bildung (Luxembourg)
CLAYSS Centro Latinoamericano de Aprendizaje y Servicio Solidario (promoter of SL globally and European actor)

These institutions/organizations of non-formal education in Europe started envisioning a European SL Network that would gather the efforts of different SL Networks in European countries as well as organizations who support SL.

The Service-Learning pedagogical approach promotes the following key characteristics:

Initiatives aimed at meeting the real needs in collaboration with a community, not only for it
Students/youngsters are central protagonists in the planning the process
Integration of learning contents, community service, and the development of protagonists' competencies: There must be clear, intentional ties between practice in service of the community and the content of the curricula

The principles of our work are:

distributed agile leadership
co-creation and collaboration
commitment to social change
sharing resources and mutual support
openness for new member organizations