To volunteer or not: no longer a choice
By Devendra Tak, Communications & Media Manager, CIVICUS, reporting from UNV Consultative Meeting in Bonn

With the global crises spiraling out of control, it is no longer for us (individuals, organisations and governments) to choose whether to volunteer and encourage volunteerism. It has become mandatory! The spate of new crises - the financial crisis, the climate change crisis, the water shortage crisis, the natural disasters, the man-made ones (armed conflicts) and the health epidemics – mean that the so-called developed nations are also part of the problem. No longer can we depend upon a pool of western volunteers to scurry off to remote parts of the world (such as most of the South) to help with the problems that recur with increasing rapidity and severity. The only way out is to bolster the spirit of volunteerism that exists in every culture and every region, so that communities are more self-sufficient to cope with crises and are equipped to provide an appropriate response to challenges that arise in their immediate neighbourhoods.

CIVICUS attended, last week, a Consultative Meeting at the United Nations Volunteers headquarters in Bonn, Germany, to prepare an Action Plan for the International Year of the Volunteers + 10 which will be in 2011. Civil Society is a crucial target audience for the campaign. CIVICUS helped to draft the communications and promotions plan. It will be imperative as the activities leading up to IYV+10 roll out, that civil society organisations across the world help to disseminate the theme of the campaign and also spread the message about volunteerism. The theme of the campaign will revolve around getting more and more volunteers involved across the world, at the individual and organisational level, with strong support from governments. A key issue here is how volunteer involving organisations can make themselves more volunteer friendly.

CIVICUS is excited about IYV+10. Increasing awareness of volunteerism is important for civil society, which is in a rapid phase of growth. Given the financial crisis, the problem of getting adequate human resources is exacerbated, especially for civil society organisations. As the global crises expand, the expectations from civil society are also on the increase. Individuals and organisations around the world are concerned and therefore this is an opportune time to turn the crisis into an opportunity to strengthen civil society. Both volunteering and social activism are important strategies for fostering people’s participation in social change and human development. This is one of the key findings of a study undertaken by CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) and United Nations Volunteers (UNV) in 2007/8.

Volunteerism is by no means a new phenomenon or something that exists only in certain parts of the world. In South Asia, for example, there are tens of thousands of volunteers of the Bangladesh Red Crescent who have been trained in cyclone preparedness. Their stories of courage were very well related by the media during the Cyclone SIDR in November 2007 when their combined efforts saved numerous lives. In the remote villages of Nepal, most of the HIV-AIDS awareness work is done by volunteers (many of whom are supported by the Nepal Red Cross Society), with substantial success. In India, during the tsunami in December 2004, most of the relief work was carried out by individuals and organisations from the local communities who rose spontaneously to the needs arising from the regional disaster. During the tsunami, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Thailand saw a lot more support from international volunteers from international relief organisations.

There are of course many challenges. The very definition of volunteerism is not very clear. According to Stefan Agerhem, Senior Officer (Global Coordination – Volunteering Development) with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, who also participated in the Bonn consultation, “The definition of volunteerism could be further improved in the coming years, hence also taking into consideration and valuing informal volunteering.” It is very difficult for potential volunteers to find ways to volunteer, especially in the area of international volunteering work. The issue of having ‘first timer’ volunteers in focus for 2011 will be important and they should be encouraged to take the step. The role of volunteer involving organisations should be to give them a good first experience of volunteering. Many volunteer-sending organisations, including UNV, support both international and national volunteering but certainly in sub-Saharan Africa there are less opportunities for international volunteering than in the US. Much more can and needs to be done to link the idea of volunteerism to civic participation though it is heartening that – increasingly -- there is more South-South international volunteering, as well as South-North volunteering. The compensation of volunteers is also the subject of some debate. While there is no doubt that the work of volunteers needs to be better recognised and even rewarded, it is not always clear or easy to find ways to do that.

Above all, there is – especially from a communications perspective – a need to make volunteering appear to be more exciting, for individuals and organisations. Its importance needs to be emphasised too, so that it is not seen as a side activity that one can indulge in when one has free time or other resources. One way to do that is to actively find methods for volunteers to be able to tell their own stories, by word of mouth, on the internet, radio and in the print media. They must be able to share their experiences – highlighting how they have been able to serve others and enrich themselves with the experience. Volunteer-sending organisations and civil society organisations must be able to provide the platforms and communications tools to enable this kind of dissemination, because in every crisis there are stories of human courage and bondage that simply must be told. Can heroism and sacrifice ever be more touching than when acts are performed in a selfless fashion? Perhaps this is what we mean by humanity and being human.

Volunteerism after all is something that will always have an emotional connection. It is a living energy that can help bind the world, even as there are forces that seem determined to pull it apart. For more information on volunteering, please visit www.volunteeringforourplanet.org and www.worldvolunteerweb.org

e-CIVICUS will have a Special Issue on International Volunteer Day (5 December) on the UN theme ‘Volunteering for Our Planet’. We invite contributions (articles, comments and photos) which may be sent to editor(at)civicus.org by 3 December.

Subscription to e-CIVICUS: 
Do you have a friend who works for a more just world? Would you like to share this newsletter with them? Why don’t you suggest they register for a free subscription?

They can send us an e-mail to subscriptions@civicus.org or fill out the subscription form click here. Alternatively, please forward their e-mail address to subscriptions@civicus.org and we’ll contact them on your behalf. 

Comments, Suggestions and Contributions:
Please send us your contributions no later than Monday every week to editor@civicus.org. All contributions must be focused on civil society issues or have a civil society angle.