Volunteerism is not just about raising an issue to create awareness about it. It is also about direct service delivery, especially when other key stakeholders, especially governments, are unable to do what they are mandated to do to fulfill the rights of the citizens
Once again it is International Volunteer Day (IVD), and once again I am writing about my hopes for promoting volunteerism as a platform and tool for personal and social change.
Talking about volunteerism, the crude reality is that it is still not fully harnessed to its potential, far from it. This stems from a lack of proper understanding of it. Too often discounted, too often taken for granted, volunteerism is not leveraged. Unfortunately, this grim situation does not only relate to Nepal, it is a widespread phenomenon. The situation is not just a pity but also a real problem.
With young people more than ever disillusioned about politics and with more and more falsely enchanted by a virtual world powered by social media that does not exist, volunteerism could be the number one antidote to fight the most pressing challenges humanity is facing.
There is no social issue that can be fought back without civic engagement, of which volunteerism is one of the most important and most practical ways to put into practice. Imagine, for example, the fight against climate change.
Like it or not, if the world reached a critical understanding of the perils enmeshed with the production and use of fossil fuels, it is because of a relatively very small group of young people that, around five to seven years ago, started creating awareness, peacefully but also loudly. Without their efforts, their time, energies and skills put at the service of humanity, the international community would not be anywhere close to demanding a clear and straightforward phase-out of fossil fuels.
You can take any other issue, for example HIV/AIDS, and again, without campaigning and activism back in the nineties, this plague would not have been drastically weakened as it is now.
But volunteerism is not just about raising an issue to create awareness about it. It is also about direct service delivery, especially when other key stakeholders, especially the governments, are unable to do what they are mandated to do to fulfill the rights of the citizens. We know very well that any smart "one window" assistance mechanism, supposedly aimed at coordinating humanitarian efforts in case of a natural disaster, is one that also is able to involve and engage citizens willing to help.
Many nations have volunteering programmes that train and mobilise highly skilled individuals in situations of natural disasters' rescue and throughout the initial phases of post-disaster relief. This is an area where Nepal should work on. Even corporations can play a big role in helping social causes by not forcing "shortcuts", from harmful practices towards the environment to abysmal treatments of their workers and local communities.
They can also adopt intelligent forms of corporate citizenship that mobilise their employees not to paint a school but through skills focused pro bono volunteering. It is a way where employees are enabled to put into practice their skills at the service, for example, of a local charity.
My own experiences in trying to "sell" this kind of volunteering in Nepal has been utterly disappointing, but as I wrote at the beginning, this piece is about hope. Now, so far, I have been focusing on what volunteers can do especially because this year's theme of IVD is focussed on the power of collective action.
At a time when federalism is so much criticised, local bodies can do a lot to trigger citizens into action. What about having a focal point within the local administrations to promote volunteerism and make it easy to volunteer across all the age groups and across all the segments of populations? Because volunteerism is an equaliser that allows citizens from all walks of life to come together, regardless of their caste, type of disability and socio-economic status.
It is an equaliser because volunteerism is a powerful tool not only because it brings people on a common mission, but because it truly empowers them by helping building new skills. In a way volunteerism is really about personal and professional development.
Only impactful actions have to be pursued through volunteerism, and to do so, we need to have skilled people putting their energies, efforts and creativity at work. Obviously, we have to recognise that not all volunteering duties and responsibilities harness people's skills.
Yet even the most monotonous and simplest task can be of critical importance. For example, simply providing a piece of information to a service seeker or helping maintain an orderly queue of people waiting for relief support is equally essential even if we do not really give much importance to these types of responsibilities.
Yet volunteerism is not valued. Maybe there is something wrong with the name. It is too long, especially in its English form. That's why I started to refer to it as the Big V, because volunteerism is really big and powerful and so big that it is transformational.
Now I conclude this column with some hopes. First the federal government should unveil the new National Volunteering Policy, which has been officially endorsed. Second, there is still no informal mechanism in place, even the "lightest"' and most informal form of it. The hope is that UNV, the programme of the United Nations mandated to promote volunteerism, can put together such coordination. We do not need "grand" machinations but rather an info-sharing, coordinating working table that meets, say, once a month.
Third, the role of educators. Promoting civic engagement, including volunteerism, should become a top priority of all schools and colleges, public and private alike. We need to work systematically, to leverage the power of the Big V, and we need to do it collectively.
The author is the co-founder of ENGAGE and of The Good Leadership
