Volunteering
Volunteering is an elective and free-choice act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor, often for community service.
[6] After World War II, people shifted the focus of their altruistic passions to other areas, including helping the poor and volunteering overseas.
When President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a War on Poverty in 1964, volunteer opportunities started to expand and continued into the next few decades.
by Janet Eyler and Dwight E. Giles, Jr., "...we promote more wide-spread adoption of service-learning in higher education because we see it as a powerful means of preparing students to become more caring and responsible parents and citizens and of helping colleges and universities to make good on their pledge to 'serve society.
"[8] Volunteering in service learning seems to have the result of engaging both mind and heart, thus providing a more powerful learning experience; according to Janet Eyler and Dwight E. Giles, it succeeds by the fact that it "...fosters student development by capturing student interest..."[9]: 1–2, 8 More recent scholarship has found shortcomings in the early assumptions of mutual benefit, since early studies were interested in educational benefits rather than community outcomes.
[editorializing] Skills-based volunteering is leveraging the specialized skills and the talents of individuals to strengthen the infrastructure of nonprofits, helping them build and sustain their capacity to successfully achieve their missions.
[15][16] Contributing to free and open source software projects or editing Wikipedia are examples of virtual volunteering.
Volunteers conduct a range of activities including environmental monitoring, ecological restoration such as re-vegetation and weed removal, protecting endangered animals, and educating others about the natural environment.
[20] Volunteering often plays a pivotal role in the recovery effort following natural disasters, such as tsunamis, floods, droughts, hurricanes, and earthquakes.
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami attracted a large number of volunteers worldwide, deployed by non-governmental organizations, government agencies, and the United Nations.
Resource poor schools around the world rely on government support or on efforts from volunteers and private donations, in order to run effectively.
"[25] Volunteering in schools can be an additional teaching guide for the students and help to fill the gap of local teachers.
Cultural and language exchange during teaching and other school activities can be the most essential learning experience for both students and volunteers.
This activity commonly occurs through not for profit organizations, local governments and churches; but also encompasses ad-hoc or informal groups such as recreational sports teams.
Seva is also connected to other Sanskrit concepts such as dāna (gift giving), karunā (compassion), and preman (kindness).
Seva is also performed as a form of ego-transcending spiritual practise known as Sadhana, and plays a large role in modern Hinduism.
In order to curtail this tension, most countries develop policies and enact legislation to clarify the roles and relationships among governmental stakeholders and their voluntary counterparts; this regulation identifies and allocates the necessary legal, social, administrative, and financial support of each party.
This is particularly necessary when some voluntary activities are seen as a challenge to the authority of the state (e.g., on 29 January 2001, President Bush cautioned that volunteer groups should supplement—not replace—government agencies' work).
The presence of volunteers who are sent from one state to another can be viewed as a breach of sovereignty and showing a lack of respect towards the national government of the proposed recipients.
Thus, motivations are important when states negotiate offers to send aid and when these proposals are accepted, particularly if donors may postpone assistance or stop it altogether.
Three types of conditionality have evolved: Some international volunteer organizations define their primary mission as being altruistic: to fight poverty and improve the living standards of people in the developing world, (e.g.
The researchers developed a "Moral Resources and Political Capital" approach to examine the contributions of volunteerism in promoting the civil society.
[42] Volunteering for community service as part of a college curriculum (service-learning) provides opportunities for students to surround themselves with new people which helps them learn how to work together as a group, improve teamwork and relational skills, reduce stereotypes, and increases appreciation of other cultures.
A systematic review shows that adults over age of 65 years who volunteer may experience improved physical and mental health and potentially reduced mortality.
[52] A worldwide survey was conducted in a study, suggesting that people who experience the highest levels of happiness are the most successful in terms of close relationships and volunteer work.
[61] In the 1960s, Ivan Illich offered an analysis of the role of American volunteers in Mexico in his speech entitled "To Hell With Good Intentions".
His concerns, along with those of critics such as Paulo Freire and Edward Said, revolve around the notion of altruism as an extension of Christian missionary ideology.
In addition, he mentions the sense of responsibility/obligation as a factor, which drives the concept of noblesse oblige—first developed by the French aristocracy as a moral duty derived from their wealth.
[67] Trade unions in the United Kingdom (UK) have warned that long term volunteering is a form of exploitation, used by charities to avoid minimum wage legislation.
[69] Volunteers can be exposed to stressful situations and attitudes, which can cause them to suffer from burnout which in turn reduces their activism and overall well-being.
