|
|
The
Universal Declaration on Volunteering
Volunteering is a fundamental building block of civil society.
It brings to life the noblest aspirations of humankind – the
pursuit of peace, freedom, opportunity, safety, and justice for
all people.
In this era of globalization and continuous change, the world
is becoming smaller, more interdependent, and more complex.
Volunteering – either through individual or group action – is a
way in which:
- human values of
community, caring, and serving can be sustained and
strengthened;
- individuals can
exercise their rights and responsibilities as members of
communities, while learning and growing throughout their
lives, realizing their full human potential; and,
- connections can be made
across differences that push us apart so that we can live
together in healthy, sustainable communities, working
together to provide innovative solutions to our shared
challenges and to shape our collective destinies.
At the dawn of the new millennium, volunteering is an
essential element of all societies. It turns into practical,
effective action the declaration of the United Nations that “We,
the Peoples” have the power to change the world.
*****
This Declaration supports the right of every woman, man and
child to associate freely and to volunteer regardless of their
cultural and ethnic origin, religion, age, gender, and physical,
social or economic condition. All people in the world should
have the right to freely offer their time, talent, and energy to
others and to their communities through individual and
collective action, without expectation of financial reward.
We seek the development of volunteering that:
- elicits the involvement
of the entire community in identifying and addressing its
problems;
- encourages and enables
youth to make leadership through service a continuing part
of their lives;
- provides a voice for
those who cannot speak for themselves;
- enables others to
participate as volunteers;
- complements but does
not substitute for responsible action by other sectors and
the efforts of paid workers;
- enables people to
acquire new knowledge and skills and to fully develop their
personal potential, self-reliance and creativity;
- promotes family,
community, national and global solidarity.
We believe that volunteers and the organizations and
communities that they serve have a shared responsibility to:
- create environments in
which volunteers have meaningful work that helps to achieve
agreed upon results;
- define the criteria for
volunteer participation, including the conditions under
which the organization and the volunteer may end their
commitment, and develop policies to guide volunteer activity;
- provide appropriate
protections against risks for volunteers and those they
serve:
- provide volunteers with
appropriate training, regular evaluation, and recognition;
- ensure access for all
by removing physical, economic, social, and cultural
barriers to their participation.
*****
Taking into account basic human rights as expressed in the
United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, the principles of
volunteering and the responsibilities of volunteers and the
organizations in which they are involved, we call on:
All volunteers to proclaim their belief in
volunteer action as a creative and mediating force that:
- builds healthy,
sustainable communities that respect the dignity of all
people;
- empowers people to
exercise their rights as human beings and, thus, to improve
their lives;
- helps solve social,
cultural, economic and environmental problems; and,
- builds a more humane
and just society through worldwide cooperation.
The leaders of:
all sectors to join together to create strong,
visible, and effective local and national “volunteer centers” as
the primary leadership organizations for volunteering;
government to ensure the rights of all people
to volunteer, to remove any legal barriers to participation, to
engage volunteers in its work, and to provide resources to NGOs
to promote and support the effective mobilization and management
of volunteers;
business to encourage and facilitate the
involvement of its workers in the community as volunteers and to
commit human and financial resources to develop the
infrastructure needed to support volunteering;
the media to tell the stories of volunteers and
to provide information that encourages and assists people to
volunteer;
education to encourage and assist people of all
ages to volunteer, creating opportunities for them to reflect on
and learn from their service;
religion to affirm volunteering as an
appropriate response to the spiritual call to all people to
serve;
NGOs to create organizational environments that
are friendly to volunteers and to commit the human and financial
resources that are required to effectively engage volunteers.
The United Nations to:
declare this to be the “Decade of Volunteers and Civil
Society”in recognition of the need to strengthen the
institutions of free societies; and,
recognize the “red V”as the universal symbol for volunteering.
IAVE challenges volunteers and leaders of all sectors
throughout the world to unite as partners to promote and support
effective volunteering, accessible to all, as a symbol of
solidarity among all peoples and nations. IAVE invites the
global volunteer community to study, discuss, endorse and bring
into being this Universal Declaration on Volunteering.
Adopted by the international board of directors of IAVE – The
International Association for Volunteer Effort at its 16th World
Volunteer Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, January 2001,
the International Year of Volunteers.
|
|
