December is the month when we go mad spending money on one another when often our time would be more appreciated than our credit cards. Somewhere in your life, there is someone outside your immediate family who needs you. It may be a vulnerable elderly person or someone with a disability who needs your friendship and help. Or it may be a friend who simply needs to know that in time of trouble, you will be there for them. Volunteer work has long been a way of supporting and even propping up official caring agencies - think of the traditional role of the churches in relation to schooling and healthcare, for example. One-third of the adult Irish population volunteered in some way or another last month, which represents a higher proportion of involvement than in any other Western country except Canada. The total amount of time given to voluntary work per year is equivalent to the hours put in by 85,636 full-time workers, with individual volunteers giving anything from one to 50 hours per month. But there remains a need for more: there are thousands of community-based organisations and well over one-third of them say that they need volunteers. At the same time, there are many potential volunteers who would like to help if only they knew how.
The problem is that volunteer recruitment is informal and often through word-of-mouth among family and friends. As society becomes less community-based and more impersonal, the informal networks that have traditionally drawn volunteers together are no longer sufficient. Increasingly, paid professionals do the work, while volunteers are left to shake a can on the street corner or sell paper flowers on annual fund-raising days. Some large voluntary organisations, such as the Irish Wheelchair Association and the Irish Cancer Society, admit to some anxiety at bringing new, untested and untrained volunteers into contact with their vulnerable clients, for fear that they may cause harm - intentionally or not. Potential volunteers may understandably feel slighted, as though the organisations are saying "we want your money but we don't want you". The opening of the Volunteer Resource Centre in Dublin this month should help to sort out some of these difficulties.
"There is a growing recognition of the central role played by volunteers in so many different contexts which are vital to sustaining civic society," says Mary Banotti, MEP, who launched the centre. "Volunteering is valuable work and those who do it should be treated fairly and with respect. The quality of commitment from volunteers has to be matched by a commitment to fairness, professionalism and equity within the organisations managing volunteers," she says.
The centre's aims are to promote high quality voluntary activity, to encourage voluntary organisations to adopt high standards of policy and practice and to act as a link between such organisations and individuals who wish to undertake consistent voluntary work. Potential workers may contact the resource centre to be matched with a voluntary organisation which needs their skills. Likewise, voluntary organisations may contact the centre for information on training, insurance, screening and selecting volunteers and how to set up a resource centre.
Volunteering may cost nothing - but it deserves respect. The centre's philosophy is that no one should feel pressured and that volunteers should gain feelings of satisfaction from their work. The centre will provide a consultancy service, which will support training for volunteers (77 per cent receive none) and encourage reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses. Currently, 71 per cent of Irish volunteers receive no out-of-pocket expenses for their work, which is the highest percentage in Europe.
If you wish to volunteer, but don't know where to begin, contact the Volunteer Resource Centre at Carmichael Centre for Voluntary Groups, Carmichael House, North Brunswick Street, Dublin 7. (Telephone: (01) 872-2622; Fax (01) 873-5737; email: vrc@tinet.ie.