- From "The Beacon," newsletter of Birthrite, South Africa. Submitted November 18, 2004 by Marjorie Moore. Minds Eye Information Service, Belleville, IL
Although volunteerism is a global phenomenon, its potential for helping meet desired sustainable development goals is yet to be fully recognized. Volunteerism is not new. Indeed, since the beginning of civilization, one of the most basic of values has been people helping people and, in the process, helping themselves. Volunteering, a personal or collective engagement, which flourishes in all nations, cultures and religions, is present across the spectrum of human development activities. What is new is the growing awareness and recognition of the contribution of volunteerism to social and economic development. Research and examples at the local, national and international levels highlight the importance of volunteering for the development process. Data on formal volunteerism in several countries suggest that most volunteers and the groups in which they are involved are active in more than one of the core areas of sustainable development, such as social services, health, education, credit and financial self-help groups, community development, housing, environment and animal protection.
"Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children." - Ezekiel 25:17.
Volunteerism connects well with the three pillars: economic growth, social development and environmental protection. In countries where the contribution of volunteerism has been tabulated, the figures suggest that anywhere between 8% and 14% of GNP can be traced to voluntary action. Less empirical observations in many other countries on the economic productive capacity of local communities clearly highlight the impact of voluntary action on the well-being of those communities.
When the purpose of service and volunteerism is to strengthen democratic participation and community empowerment, volunteerism can be wholly beneficial. As Ivan Illich once observed about international volunteerism, "[Volunteers] frequently wind up alleviating the damage done by money and weapons….” When conducted as part of a deliberately revelatory cycle, volunteerism can become a process for empowerment, as long as it is not at the expense of others' self-determination.
After growing up occasionally homeless, then in a low-income community where my family and friends was the subject of much volunteerism, I started working as volunteer for the people in many areas like developing a tutoring and mentoring program for the rural youth and women, and assisting many voluntary organizations in the rural area, training them on ICTs, sustainable environment and how to help the physically challenged. I promoted volunteerism to all kinds of people. However, my most riveting experience came when I served as state co-coordinator for International Association for Volunteer Effort where I was responsible for recruiting and teaching young and old people about volunteering. I discovered that the language of "service" covered an attitude that was pious at best; at worst, it perpetuated a sense of “noblesse oblige” - the royalty, taking pity on the peasants and giving them alms.
“Service is never a simple act; it's about sacrifice for others and about accomplishment for ourselves, about reaching out, one person to another, about all our choices gathered together as a country to reach across all our divides.”
-Former US President G. W. Bush
My own concern was coupled with others whom I met in this act of volunteering. After several years, I worked with a group of people from across the Nation and West Africa to develop a teaching practice called Activist Learning. I will never forget my relationship in volunteerism with Dr. Rose Ekeleme and Oyebisi Babatunde Oluseyi with whom I organised IVD 2004 events together. After exploring the benefits and faults of service learning, we defined Activist Learning as community learning characterized by people taking action to realize a society based on just relationships by seeking to change unequal power structures throughout our communities. However, after promoting Activist Learning for several years I discovered that there is another need that extends beyond schools and into communities. I saw that need as a re-visioning experience of volunteers.
Below is the sample work of volunteers in Nigeria.
Dr. Rose Ekeleme – President - International Association for Volunteer Effort (Nigeria)
Dr. Rose Ekeleme became a member of IAVE in 1988, Dr. Ekeleme has been an avid and dedicated volunteer from her youth, when she volunteered as a Girl Guide and member of the Red Cross to assist the disabled and the less privileged. It is this same interest that prompted her to major in special education for her doctorate degree. She belongs to several philanthropic organisations in Nigeria, especially those catering to the interests of women.
Health Project
Nigeria is the world’s fifth largest oil producer, and at the same time one of the world’s poorest countries. Around 59% of the population is illiterate and lives in rural areas, where they lack the most basic services and hospitals. She had begun to ask herself how to get people from rural areas to hospital and how to improve health care for those people.
For her project, she contacted a Nigerian doctor who was working in the United States to see if she could obtain donations of medicines. At the same time, in Nigeria, she hired a volunteer nurse full time and three other volunteers. To these she added a doctor, who agreed to give two days a week to voluntary work. At first, they planned to hand out the medicines free of charge to whoever needed them, but then people would likely not value them, thinking that the medicines could not possibly be as good or as effective if they did not have to pay for them. So now they sell the medicines for a symbolic price. The volunteer nurse visits around 50 people per day.
The results of the project have been very satisfactory, as it is believed to have had a significant impact on the society in which these people live and on their quality of life. It also has given voluntary work a higher profile and made the government more aware of the fact that the population needs better medical care. The volunteers give particular attention to people with HIV/AIDS in order to prevent further infections.
Oyebisi Oluseyi Babatunde – Focal Point for International Conference Volunteers (Nigeria) and Focal Point International Volunteer Day (IVD) in Nigeria.
He is a young Nigerian Youth leader. He is a graduate of the Federal College of Forestry - Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria, while he was in college; He was President of the Agricultural Extension and Management Students Association. He is a member of more than 15 active civic organizations and has worked over the years with activists and organizations around the globe from Africa, America and Europe on issues concerning development, Youth, Gender violence, HIV/AIDS, and the Millennium Development Goals, among others.
Rural Voices of Youth Forum Project
He started the Rural Voices of Youth Forum in Nigeria to reach out to young people in rural areas who do not have internet access. Every month, Seyi travels with volunteers to rural areas in Nigeria to have discussions with young people and record their thoughts and feelings on a given topic like Water Sanitation, ICT in the rural areas and Sustainable environment.
During their visits Rural Youths are taught the basics of the computer and their thoughts on varying global issues were sought after which they are posted on the UNICEF voices of Youth Forums website (www.unicef.org/voy/takeaction/takeaction_1115.html for other Youths world wide to see. This has been very helpful as most of the Rural Youths now take up Community development initiatives on their own. For example in Olorunda Abaa village the Youths there having had an encounter with the Rural voices of youth forum team now have their own youth network which they call community development youth forum and they have successfully executed projects such as construction of bridge and cultivating a farmland that would serve as a source of funding for their projects.
Sir. David Osunde – Founder Sir David Osunde Foundation (SDOF)
Established in 1993, it is one of the foremost Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in Nigeria that was established to assist the physically challenged.
SDOF takes a multi-pronged approach to empower the physically challenged through: moral support and inspiration, educational and employment opportunities, housing, direct financial support, and public and government awareness campaigns.
Naomi Koko Project
Naomi Koko was born April 4, 1975, the second child of a family of seven. When she was seven years old, she noticed a bump on her foot. As Naomi grew, the bump grew and became increasingly bothersome, but the family could not afford medical attention for her. By the time Naomi was 18, the pain from her foot kept her from helping with farming. Since she felt like a burden on her family and saw no future for herself in the village, at 20 she left for the city determined to get an education and make a future for herself, even if she had to go into prostitution. (Prostitution bring about N5000 or ~$35 a ‘trick’, which is about half a month’s salary for many people. The HIV/ AIDS among prostitutes is over 75%).
Naomi enrolled in Kaduna Polytechnic and found a way to support herself by supplying bush meat to restaurants. However, after two years her foot became too painful for her to work and continue her studies. With the help of her brother and uncle, she had her foot examined at the hospital. They found a large tumor on her foot and tried to remove it through an operation. However, the operation wound never healed but festered and rotted. Naomi carried the open wound for 9 months until she received more medical treatment. By that time, Naomi was wasting away and could not even feed herself. The doctor said that the cancer had spread from her foot and it needed to be amputated. At 25 years old, Naomi’s lost her leg.
Conclusion
When considering community members' empowerment in Brazil, Paulo Freire once wrote "those invaded became convinced of their intrinsic inferiority." The implication that volunteerism is an engine for a degrading, delineating social design is not new, but the challenge that faces us is: to make volunteerism a relevant, purposeful engine for democracy and sustainable communities today, and by doing so, to create a vibrant, purposeful society tomorrow.
In his book, "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community," published a year before his death, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about what he called the world house. "This is the great new problem of mankind," he wrote. "We have inherited a large house, a great 'world house' in which we have to live together -- black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu -- a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace."
"All inhabitants of the globe are now neighbors," King continued, predicting a time in which not only African Americans would be fully free, but peoples suffering discrimination everywhere. "Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever," he wrote. "The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself."
The challenge we face as responsible community workers, educators and other social providers is to build Dr. King's world house, where he proposed a revolution of values. That is why we must aspire to lift volunteerism towards the poignancy which it could have. That is one where the community and the volunteer work with good intention in unity for the common good of all. That is where I want to live.
I do have a song that always beat my heart:
We could fly so high
Let our spirits never die
In my heart I feel
You are all my brothers
Create a world with no fear
Together we'll cry happy tears
See the nations turn
Their swords into plowshares
We could really get there
If you cared enough for the living
Make a little space to make a better place.
Chorus:
Heal the world
Make it a better place
For you and for me and the entire human race
There are people dying
If you care enough for the living
Make a better place for
You and for me.
-Micheal Jackson
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