What is volunteering?!

September 5th, 2007 by mas | Filed under Participation & Citizenship.

I’m not in favour of young people being ‘paid to volunteer’ in fact I’m strongly against it. Nothing in my experience has demonstrated any need to do this - of course all volunteers should have their expenses covered but talk of payment is simply a desperate act to recruit to ‘fill the figures’ in my opinion. I am in favour of young people being paid where they earn it and where its appropriate - but this is not volunteering.

To further complicate the definition of volunteering (or lack of) now CSV (Community Service for Volunteering) are apparently suggesting that there could be a compulsory service of volunteering! Quite how ‘compulsory’ and ‘volunteering’ have been put into the same sentence I have no idea!

Reading this article I suspect the suggestion of the proposed ‘national youth service’ being compulsory has been unduly emphasised but even so its interesting that the proposal, compulsory or not, seems to have at its heart the ‘needs of the nation’ rather than the needs of young people. I can see how the needs of young people can meet the ‘needs of the nation’ very well, but the starting point for young people volunteering HAS to be that they WANT to do it - not to enforce a year of action to help patch up some of our public services.

Heres my definition of volunteering:

Someone who performs or offers to perform a service out of their own free will

Note their own free will - NOT because of:
- payment
- incentives
- benefits
- perceived benefit to society stated by others

So maybe more effort on helping young people to realise how to make their own choices about volunteering and less effort trying to force young people to volunteer because some politicians think its the thing to do.

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ade 1 year ago 1 point
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Totally agree with all you said! Paid volunteering and forced volunteering are definitely oxymorons unparalleled in the history of oxymoronia!!

The other problem I have in the whole discussion about young people's volunteering is how there is so much emphasis on supporting older young people rather than spreading out investment to all ages.

I am not entirely convinced of statements that say that young people are volunteering less now than they used to in the past but without research to support or disprove this - I am happy for money to be spent supporting the development of volunteering.

Our experience of volunteering is that you need to:
* provide a variety of opportunities so people can pick and choose
* support the development of a culture where volunteering is promoted so that people are interested in looking for places to volunteer and also develop the habit of volunteering (NYA published a report about the culture part, I haven't read it yet at www.nya.org.uk/youthactionandengagement)

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digitalyw 1 year ago 1 point
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definitely agree with the incorrect emphasis on older young people volunteering.

I don't at all believe that there are less young people volunteering now - every report I've seen says that young people are still the age group most likely to and most active as volunteers.

I think its insulting that young people under the age of 16 are somehow not classed as volunteers - if this is the case we wouldn't exist - we were initially established because of under 16 year olds volunteering on a principle that if we could get young people involved at an early age they would stay involved - well its nearly 8 years later and many of them still are!

Just because they're called 'children' doesn't mean they can't work hard and give their own skills and efforts in their own free time.

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digitalyw 1 year ago 1 point
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fresh in today......

"Helping Out: a national survey of volunteering and charitable giving, has found that young people aged 16 to 24 are most likely to be regular formal volunteers, with 43% reporting regular involvement compared to 39% for people of all ages. However, the research suggests that they are less likely to be occasional volunteers (13% against an average of 20%) and slightly more likely than other age groups not to volunteer (43% against 41%). The survey, published by the Cabinet Office, built on the 2005 Citizenship survey to provide more information about people’s involvement in and experiences of formal volunteering"

taken from: http://www.nya.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?No...

I'd like to see what the definition of volunteering was for this - nearly half the population volunteer?! I remember an old study similar to this that included things like babysitting and mowing the lawn for your parents as volunteering! Not suggesting that this report does that of course!

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Rizwan 5 months ago 1 point
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If you're looking for volunteers, I've compiled a comprehensive list of all the different volunteering sites online where you might be able to highlight the help you need. http://urbansurvivalproject.googlepages.com/onl...

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http://www.urbansurvivalproject.org

digitalyw 5 months ago 1 point
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great list Rizwan

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