Code of conduct

The EVEC Volunteer Academy is the online volunteering programme of EVEC Athens, open from the age of 15. This code says what you agree to do as a volunteer, and what EVEC and its Academy staff promise you in return. It applies to every volunteer, at any age and wherever you live.

When you sign up, you tick this box: “I have read the safeguarding policy and the code of conduct, and I will keep to them.” This page is that code of conduct. Where it says “I”, that is your promise. Where it says “we”, that is ours. If you are under 18, your parent or guardian confirms that they have read it when they register you. Please read it too: it applies to you in the same way. More detail is in our safeguarding policy, which explains how we keep volunteers safe.

1. Respect

• I treat everyone in the Academy with respect — staff, reviewers and other volunteers — whatever their age, nationality, gender, disability, religion, sexual orientation or background.
• I never harass, bully, discriminate against or abuse anyone. When I write about people or groups, I treat them with respect.

2. How we communicate

There is no chat, forum or private messaging between volunteers, at any age.

• I write to the Academy team in the Messages tab, up to 3 messages a day. If I am 18 or over, I can also email questions to academy@evec.org.gr.
• I do not try to reach individual staff members or reviewers privately — on their personal phone, personal email or social media.
• I do not use anything I see in the Academy to find or contact another volunteer.

3. My work

• I send only my own work. When I use facts or text from somewhere else, I say where they came from.
• If I cannot finish a task by its deadline, or I want a break, I tell the team in Messages, so they know and do not keep reminding me. Stopping for a while and coming back is completely fine.

4. What I never send

I never send any of these things — not in a task, a lesson, a message or an image I propose, and not in anything I share as a link:

• nudity or sexual content
• violent or gory images or text
• hate, harassment or bullying, or anything that insults or mocks people or groups
• other people’s personal details or faces without their written permission
• work copied from someone else

Section 10 explains what happens if someone sends anything like this.

5. Photos, video and my name

• In photos and video, I never include anything that shows where I live or which school I go to.
• My name on the website, my name on social media, a tag of my personal social media account, and my face in photos or video are separate choices. I can say no to any of them without affecting the others or my taking part, and each choice can be changed later, as our privacy notice explains. If I am under 18, my parent or guardian makes these choices.

6. Graphics calls

When an article is approved for publishing, any volunteer who wants to can propose an image for it. This is the one place where volunteers see each other’s work. The writer sees the proposals as A, B, C, without names or links; only our team knows who made each one.

• While the call is open, I get a link to the article’s document so that I can read it. I use it only for that and do not pass it on.
• Google may show me whose account the document belongs to. I do not use that name to look for or contact the writer.
• When the article is mine, I keep my name out of the document. Google may show the other volunteers the name on my Google account. If I do not want my document shared, I say so in the note I send with the article, and the other volunteers get a copy made by EVEC instead.

7. Keeping yourself safe online

• The Academy never asks for your full surname, full date of birth, home address, school or phone number. You do not need to give them to anyone in the Academy.
• If someone who says they are from EVEC contacts you by phone, private email or social media, it is not us, and we want to know.
• If anyone asks you to talk outside the Academy, or anything makes you worried or uncomfortable, use Report a problem (see section 9). If it is about someone at EVEC, email youth@evec.org.gr instead. You will not be in trouble for asking.

8. What EVEC and Academy staff promise you

• We treat every volunteer with respect and do not tolerate harassment, bullying, discrimination or any form of abuse.
• Every member of Academy staff can read every Messages thread, so it is never one adult alone with a young person. Staff never contact you by phone, private email or social media, and never ask to.
• Every task is read by a named person at EVEC, who explains their changes. Work sent back for changes is normal, not a mark against you.
• Only adults on the EVEC team review a young person’s work. They get the same safeguarding briefing as staff. We ask them for a criminal-record certificate, as we do for every role that involves working with people under 18.
• Nothing you send is published until our team approves it. Your work stays yours. Your name goes with it only if you have chosen that (or, if you are under 18, your parent or guardian has). We take your name off whenever you ask; work already published stays published.
• We remove location data (such as where a photo was taken) from every file before we use it.
• If you are under 18, every Academy email about you goes to your parent or guardian, and they can ask us for a copy of everything we hold about you, including your work. We tell you this from the start, so that nothing happens behind your back.
• Every concern is taken seriously, recorded and acted on. We acknowledge every safeguarding message within 2 working days.
• Nobody is treated worse for honestly reporting a concern. If a report is about someone, we never tell them who sent it.

9. If something goes wrong

• Use Report a problem at the bottom of any Academy screen. Your report goes into your Messages thread, which Academy staff can read, and every report also reaches Mrs Mirlena Charisi, President of EVEC Athens, who is responsible for safeguarding. If you wrote an article, you can also report an image proposed for it; the image is hidden at once.
• Or email youth@evec.org.gr with Safeguarding in the subject line. It goes to Mrs Charisi, who is independent of whoever runs the Academy day to day. If your concern is about a member of staff or a reviewer, use this email rather than Report a problem. You can write without giving your name, although that can limit what we are able to do.
• If someone is in immediate danger, call your local emergency number (112 across the EU). The European child helpline is 116 111.
• For anything that is not a safeguarding matter, use our complaints procedure. If you are not satisfied with how we responded to a concern, our safeguarding policy explains where you can take it.

10. If someone breaks this code

• Anything from the list in section 4 is removed, and we may close the account that sent it.
• We can suspend an account while we look into a concern.
• If a young person may be at risk, we follow the steps in our safeguarding policy. Where a criminal offence may have occurred, we contact the Greek authorities.
• None of these steps is taken because someone took a break, missed a deadline or had work sent back for changes.
• If you think we got a decision about your account wrong, you can use our complaints procedure.

11. For parents and guardians

• You register your child first and confirm that you have read the safeguarding policy and this code. Every Academy email about your child comes to you. You can ask us at any time for a copy of everything we hold about your child, including their work.
• You make the choices in section 5 for your child: whether their first name appears on the website or on social media, whether their personal account may be tagged, and whether their face may appear in photos or video.
• Until your child turns 18, you can raise any concern with us at youth@evec.org.gr, and you can withdraw your child at any time, without giving a reason. Their access closes the same day, and we email you to confirm it.
• More on the page for parents and guardians and in our privacy notice.

Version 1, 14 October 2026. This code of conduct is reviewed together with our safeguarding policy, at least once a year.