VOLUNTEER - KEY TO THE FUTURE

1st meeting on 1. 3. 2011 at Mladinski Ceh

Participants: 10

Meeting:

1. Introducing each other

2. Associations of ideas about volunteering and writing them on the board:

-competence

-entertainment

-personal growth

-SocialDevelopment

-hanging out

-innovation

-diversity

-support

-acceptanceof each other

-Mladinski CEH: CEH > HEC (hec in Slovenian language means fun/joke) J

3. Brainstorming and discussion about volunteering theme

1. mission of Mladinski Ceh is to improve the world- Mladinski Ceh trains youth, who is  foundation of the society; volunteering is condition for existence of Mladinski Ceh but also Mladinski Ceh is very important for volunteering because it includes in almost every voluntary organisation in Slovenia


2. values at Mladinski Ceh: Christians' values, trust to each other
   
3. at Mladinski Ceh are about 80 people/volunteers and half of them are also employed there; volunteers and employees are in good relationships, they help each other
   
4. at Mladinski Ceh is important to trust to each other
   
5. people who are not volunteers can't appreciate the volunteering- some of these people even ask why to volunteering if this work is not paid; volunteering has become self-evident
   
6. aims are hard to define, because there are so many aims at Mladinski Ceh and every volunteer brings some new aims in the organisation, but Mladinski Ceh tries to educate youth by Don Bosco's principles
   
7. qualifications for trainers covers 6 to 20 hours (they are qualified to teach different skills (rhetoric, communication, motivation)
   
8. mentoring is not clearly define- every volunteer learns for himself in different situations, he/she tries new things, new tasks, he/she cope wiht troubles, hard situations and other volunteers help him/her, they are supportive
   

4. Evaluation

We had good time and everyone learned something. We found out that volunteering is not appreciated enough and that there more promotion of volunteering is neccessary.

Report: VOLUNTEERS' CHALLENGES IN ZSKSS

First national meeting within the project Volunteer – key to the future!

Date: 28. 2. 2011

Venue: Ljubljana

Number of participants: 15

DESCRIPTION OF THE MEETING

Purpose of the meeting was to identify and discus about volunteers’ challenges in Slovenian Catholic Girl Guides and Boy Scouts Association (ZSKSS). Participants were volunteers, who take the highest responsibilities in ZSKSS.

Course of the meeting:

1. Participants have presented their experiences with voluntary work. We used method of photoelicitation.

2. Participants were thinking about challenges of voluntary work in our organisation – in relation

with voluntary work and so. Challenges were written down on paper.

3. The participants classified the challenges in groups, and on this basis they identified the main

challenges of volunteers in ZSKSS. Conclusions were written down on the poster.

4. The participants completed a survey on the challenges in their volunteering.

OUTCOMES OF THE MEETING

1. SUPPORT AND TRAINING OF VOLUNTEERS.

ZSKSS supports volunteers in different ways. Most of participants of the first national meeting agree that ZSKSS offers strong support. Nobody thinks ZSKSS’s support isn’t appropriate. Support is offer through training camps, mentors, volunteer national meetings, literature and volunteer connecting.

• Training course - conclusion of the meeting is, that the most appropriate way of support is through training courses. Training courses are organised at different levels. They help volunteers to get knowledge for their volunteer work in local, regional or national units. Structure of training courses has been recently updated and restructured so it can offer much more support to the volunteer.

• Mentors present and show different ways of support, offered by ZSKSS, to young volunteers and leaders who are new with volunteer work. Mentor supports and follows volunteer’s progress. The participants of the meeting see mentors as medium or weak support, as mentors is quite a new way of support in ZSKSS.

• National leaders meetings. The participants thought ZSKSS offers strong support through National leaders meeting. Meetings offer different activities for leaders, who work with groups of children or youth (8-10 years old, 11-15 or 16-21 years old children/youth). The national leaders meetings offer socializing, exchanging experiences and best practices.

• Literature: ZSKSS regularly edits and publish different literature, that serves as a support to leaders in their work. The majority of the participants believe that such support is strong.

2. RECOGNITION OF VOLUNTEERS. Leaders seem that as volunteers in ZSKSS get enough recognition for their work. Some argue it may not come at the right time. Participants believe that volunteering in Slovenia is not sufficient recognised by the country and they add that the country remembers them rarely (once a year) and that often favours certain voluntary organizations. Although the status of volunteerism in Slovenia is improving, on the other hand, volunteers often feel used by their country.

3. VOLUNTEERS ON THE LABOUR MARKET. We also talked about whether volunteering is a valuable reference in the labour market in Slovenia and came to the divided opinions: some view it, others not. Despite the fact that the situation in this area is improving, it must be stressed that employers provide too little value, and that things might have been better.

4. BECOMING A VOLUNTEER. Ione of the most important challenges for the volunteers in our organization is on to decide to become a volunteer or leader. We find that among young people (potential leaders) there is a lack of motivation and individuals are overwhelmed, because they know volunteering takes a lot of time and work. Leadership means a lot of work and is a big decision to make. Perhaps this is also the result of a desire for leisurely life or for different way of life. Even more challenging is the fact, the demands towards volunteers ansd their responsabilities are increasing (expertise, time, etc..). The decision to volunteer also means you are given the rules, policies (which, according to the participants are increasing). The greatest problem is lack of time, as a result of the dichotomy in various activities, whereas the lack of volunteers.

5. SAFETY AND SECURITY OF VOLUNTEERS. An important challenge is the safety and security of volunteers, who have a great responsibility. This means more legal liability, on the other hand youth and their parents are increasingly demanding. An important aspect also is more and more paperwork they are dealing with.

6. INFORMATION AND MONITORING. One of the challenges is the poor monitoring and communication of volunteers, which is related to the problem of mentoring - the volunteers haven’t enough personal monitoring. In all this there are also problems with financing - how to cover the cost of volunteers (increasing of travel and other costs).