Romania: Volunteering week a success on all fronts

This year's National Volunteering Week was celebrated in 39 Romanian cities from April 14-16.
The main aim of the week is to mobilise as many people and organisations as possible in public activities that bring attention to volunteering and promote the work that volunteers carry out in the community to bring about the social acceptance of volunteering.

This is the seventh year that volunteering has been celebrated in this way in Romania, this year it ended with a participatory camping event organised by the NGO Pro-Vobis under the title ?Its time to be different. Good actions are not for money?. Pro Vobis in partnership with local associations also promoted several different public volunteering activities, contexts, expositions, round tables, seminars, training sessions and other volunteering related activities.

Cristina Rigman is Executive Director of the Romanian NGO Pro Vobis. She started to work with the Third Sector as volunteer while studying at University, where she graduated in Political sciences and Mastered in Community Development. In 2003 she joined Pro Vobis and is also preparing her Doctorate Degree on Social responsability in Romania.

What are the main indicators of the success of the ?It is time to be different? campaign?
The National Campaign to promote volunteering It is time to be different! Good actions are not for money was launched in November 2007 culminating with National volunteering week. In these five months since we started the Campaign the most succesful sign of success has been demonstrated by our web portal (www.voluntariat.ro) that received over 10 thousand visitors. The seminar What is and What is not to be a Volunteer dedicated to public authorities, institutions and NGOs who work with volunteers was also hugely successful – initially we had planned 10 seminars all over the country but due to the interest of the subject we extended the number to 17.

We also received much suppport from the 12 partners that contributed, each in their own way, to the Campaign and included our founders, the Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe and the Charles Mott Fundation. Our dedicated email address receives messages from people all over the country wanting to know how to become volunteers in their local community every day.

For the first time, this year National TV and radio stations have broadcast the campaign jingles and spots and national TV talk show star Mihaela Radulescu has promoted our campaign every Sunday in her show. This years national volunteering week took place in 39 Romanian cities; compared to last year's event there were more local partners, in particular primary and high schools have joined and promoted volunteering to youngsters.

Why have a National Volunteering Week?
The first national volunteering week was organised in 2002 based on the experience gained from the International volunteering year in 2001. The idea behind this event is to mobilize as many people and partners as possible and bring attention to volunteering. We believe that it is important to gain public and social acceptance of volunteering and making a statement about the importance of their work in the community.

How has volunteering evolved in Romania?
In my opinion volunteering has experienced a positive change over the past 15 years. In the early 90's volunteering was seen as an activity that foreigners carried out, but today it has its own national characteristics and has become a national movement. Romanian volunteering is still trying to overcome memories of the Communist period, when volunteering was ?patriotic work?. This lable is obviously seen in a negative light and works against volunteering. People often take the view that patriotic work is over now that we have democracy. What we try to do, through our activities, is to proove that activities like recycling are valuable whatever the political regime.

What are the main challenges that volunteering faces in Romania?
Public attidutes and mentality are the two forces that are holding back the development of volunteering in Romania. Initiative and responsibility are not at the top when it comes to values here in Romania, and in my opinion it is because of the Communist regime. Becoming involved in volunteering requires a high level of initiative and responsibility. And a lot of courage, because active volunteers must face the disdain of those who do not understand what they do.

But I believe that Romanian volunteering is on the right path and is experiencing positive evolution, although it would be nice to see things moving faster.

What are the positive signs?
We have a Volunteering Law that gives volunteering credibility, we also have many organizations that recruit and involve volunteers and volunteering centres to support them. We also have companies that support the involvement of their employees in volunteering activities and, most importantly, we have individuals who want to be volunteers.

What are the characteristics of Romanian volunteering?
The most obvious characteristic is youth. If you were to ask me what other European volunteering centres envy us, I would say it is the large number of young active volunteers.

Pro Vobis has recently completed research about volunteering in Romania and 71% of the people who completed the questionnairs was between 19-25 years old. The survey also showed that they have very different reasons to volunteer ? the most popular reason was the desire to help peple, followed by the opportunity top gain new experiences, make friends, develop their ideas, enhance their cv's and to gain experience in their future careers.

How is volunteering perceived at an institutional level in Romania?
This is a tough question. There are no studies on this particular issue. Based on my experience, I would say that certainly it is the NGO sector that, more than any other, has embraced volunteerism. Public institutions have opened their minds a lot, and some volunteering does go on within them. This change has been especially brought about by legislative changes, such as a new accreditation system for social service providers that obliges them to involve volunteers. However, the application of these laws is still not sufficient and not enough resources are being invested into the sytem.

Why is it important to promote volunteering?
Promoting volunteering is our primary mission. Volunteering is the expression of an individual's responsibility towards society: it incorporates active citizenship, civism, solidarity, dedication. Every society needs volunteers, but it is fair only if they are given the choice to volunteer or not. It is important to promote volunteering so that people have the choice and the chance to become volunteers, to know what is involved. If nobody promoted volunteering, we would be depriving people of this extraordinary opportunity.

More info
www.voluntariat.ro

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Emanuel Franga, Projects officer for Action 2 EVS