Views: Sonja Gavrilova

Voluntarism, directly from the field
 

To work as a volunteer for ten years in the NGO – Parents’ Association for Care for Healthy Generation from Veles is above all a rich life experience that should be shared with the public, in interest of improving volunteerism in Macedonia.

The term volunteer means a person who voluntarily, willingly and of his own choice offers his services in favor of other people, without being paid for that. The choice of being a volunteer depends on the person himself and his will to voluntarily engage and work for a civil society organization, most often led by his own feeling of fulfillment, useful and human engagement, present motivation and stimulus, which are the essence and the reason for human activities in any field of acting and working.

Between the members of our organization, and I believe that others will identify themselves, there are a few categories of volunteers:

·        Short-term, or better said, volunteers – sympathizers of the association, that get involved in one transparent action, giving their contribution and then they withdraw, explaining they do not have enough free time and that they have some other engagements (most often they are employed members in some company or organization);
·        Volunteers who are unemployed, have spare time and give their contribution in the organization, with more activities, but if their labor is not valued through, above all, basic material costs or project activities, they lose interest and motivation and they withdraw;
·        A small number of volunteers who continuously contribute in the organization because they were involved in its establishment, so in some way they are emotionally tied for the organization and its survival, with already found mechanisms for realization of the association’s mission and meeting their interests and enthusiasm;
·        Volunteers, children and young people from the young generation of our association, (the most important category of volunteers for me), who take part in all the activities within the association aimed at their age and abilities, with honest enthusiasm and tireless pulsating child-youth energy. The feeling of fulfillment, pride and responsibility is wonderful, when young generations accept your experience and knowledge, develop it and return with real values on the road of their maturity. The contributions of voluntarism within children and young people are positive and significant for the development of their personality. They usefully spend their free time with educational-recreational contents and activities and with awareness that they help and contribute to the organization and wider community.

How do the NGOs exist for many years and how do they attract new volunteers and members? I think that without good motivation and interest and an appropriate legal frame, voluntarism is of short-term character. Following and cooperating with many volunteers for the past ten years, I propose the following solutions for developing voluntarism, as a necessary need for development and sustainability of the civic sector, as part of the development of the local self-government itself and the state:

·        Existence of an appropriate legal regulation for the legal status of voluntarism and practical application of the Law on voluntarism by competent structures;
·        Increased transparency of the role of voluntarism and its contributions for development of civil society and civic sector, through local and national lobby-campaigns;
·        Increased cooperation with local and governmental institutions in the part of using volunteering services by NGO expert potentials. In context of this proposal, I would like to point out that volunteers who are involved in realization of activities important for the development of local or wider social community, should be given references by an appropriate local or governmental institution, that will further help in their CV (e.g. for getting a job, obtaining scholarships, development in their career etc.);
·        Boosting and support to the Euro-Balkans volunteering non-governmental initiatives (by involvement and support of Macedonian and European foundations, NGO and representatives of local self-government and governmental institutions) in order to exchange experiences, build partnership cooperation and mutual activities for support of development of voluntarism.

(the author is a psychologist, member of the Parents’ Association for Care for Healthy Generation from Veles)