International Year of the Volunteers (IYV) follow-up report to the UN General Assembly: Rose Ekeleme

Changes within the last few years 

 There has been a significant awareness on the importance and relevance of volunteering as a building block for State and national development.  More people are now involved in volunteering as a means of solving problems.  For instance more non-governmental organizations that use the services of volunteers are involved in HIV/AIDS programmes, in mass literacy and in human rights activities.

 In Nigeria, faith groups as volunteers are relatively a new phenomenon that has catapulted in number and activities since 2001.  These faith groups provide help and succor to the less privileged especially those in the hospitals.  Some IAVE volunteers who belong to these faith groups visit hospitals on Sundays.  While their main motive is to preach the bible to inspire hope and faith, they also give them material things e.g soap, powder, cream, milk sugar etc.

 Among the Igbos of Eastern Nigeria, volunteering since 2001 has been entrenched as a “tradition”.  It is now customary for all Igbo women to return to their villages in August for community services.  The community service lasts about a week.  The various villages decide the period in August when they would meet to embark on specified projects.  The project may be building a secondary school, a library, a health center, a meeting hall, a borehole for water etc.  The project executed will depend entirely on the needs of the community.

 Prior to those living “abroad” returning home, those living at home would volunteer days to organize the programmes in the villages.  This gathering of women for purposes of volunteering for development is known as “August meeting” or “home and abroad” meeting.  Named “Home and Abroad” because it is a gathering of women in the villages (home) and those in the cities or urban areas (abroad).

 This is a significant phenomenon that is fast growing and being encouraged by government because here women are informally mobilized to assist government in development.  For example, in early August 2007, Mrs Mercy Orji, the wife of the governor of Abia State, Nigeria invited the executives of the women groups for a one day sensitization workshop on “August” meeting.  They were urged to send their projects to the State government.  That was aimed at kick starting all August meetings in Abia State for 2007 and to ensure there is a focus during the 2007 “August” meetings.  Preparations are now underway for 2008 August meetings.  For the first time, a compendium of the projects executed by the women during the August meeting of 2007 is being compiled and will be distributed to those interested in volunteering.

Factors that may hinder or speed up volunteering:
I have listed them based on priority

v     Funds: 
 Adequate funding will promote volunteers; similarly, lack of funds will hinder volunteering. 
 
Even though volunteers are not paid per se, they need funds for the execution of projects.  Also many are given transport/ meal allowances.

v     Capacity building for volunteers:
 Many volunteer without actually understanding what they are doing. As a result many feel frustrated and eventually they cease volunteering.  Through the years, we have lost many volunteers because we didn’t train them.  After a while, they get dissatisfied and stop volunteering. But if more people are trained, the number of volunteers will also increase.  People will experience job satisfaction in volunteering and will continue to volunteer

v     Enlightenment:     
 Many people still don’t appreciate the importance of volunteering.  For instance, there are people in Nigeria who still believe that volunteering is for the “wealthy”  “those who have enough & to spare”.  It is for those “who have nothing to do”.  When we enlighten them, many times they now admit they have been volunteering without realizing it is volunteering.  For example a group of young boys and girls in a local church raised funds to pay the exam fees for 3 members of the group and they spend four hours weekly helping members who are weak in mathematics.  Initially, they told me they were “called” by God for the assignment, but now they realize they are volunteers, not evangelists.

Every eight days in the week (The Igbo week is eight days).  Women in Itaja a local village in Abia State weed and sweep the entire village.  Yet they don’t regard themselves as volunteers.  They help keep the environment clean and in so doing stay healthy by clearing all mosquito-infested sites.  I believe that adequate enlightenment will speed up volunteering. 

Enlightenment may be linked to “publicity”.  Enough publicity is not given to volunteer activities.  It is only when there is a disaster e.g in the case of Nigeria a pipeline explosion resulting in loss of several lives, then we hear of volunteers helping to remove dead bodies or rescuing people.  Other instance involved volunteers assisting refugees from other countries.  The “African Refugee Foundation that engages volunteers participate actively in this exercise. 

What Government/UN must do to Support Volunteering.
Various Governments and United Nations agencies must support volunteering by funding organizations that use the services of volunteers.

Nigeria government has taken a significant step to support volunteering by establishing a government parastatal known as NIGERIA NATIONAL VOLUNTEER SERVICE.  This agency is headed by a former Ambassador who is a very vibrant and dedicated volunteer.  He has a full complement of staff.  His enthusiasm for volunteering has spread like wild fire in his office.  In the last 3 years, they have organized annual conferences to which Nigerians in Diaspora were invited.  The aim was to encourage Nigerian experts living and working outside Nigeria to return to Nigeria and volunteer their services in their areas of expertise.

This Governmental parastatal was the lead agency in the execution of 1^st Nigerian Summit on Volunteering jointly organized by UNV in Nigeria, VSO and IAVE.  This summit was held in November last year and, was attended by Liz Burns the then president of IAVE.  It brought together volunteers representing many organizations from all over the country.  This healthy cooperation/relationship between Government and civil organizations should be encouraged and strengthened for the development of volunteering in this country. 

Many UN agencies have programmes in Nigeria that have impacted positively on the lives of people e.g UNICEF, UNIDO, UNDP, UNIFEM.  But unfortunately, UNV as an agency has not had any significant impact in this country.  I will therefore encourage UNV to recruit local UNV staff as is done in other West African countries e.g Cote lvoire , Togo, Liberia etc.   These local volunteers understand the small idiosyncrasies of the people and will be able to penetrate them in developing volunteerism in the country.

What countries could do to support Volunteering:
In 2001, countries constituted IYV committees.  It was a useful exercise because many countries came out with laws, and programmes for the development of volunteering.  In Nigeria, however, it failed because, (inspite of the enthusiasm of some members of that committee) of the conflict between the head of UNV/UNDP in Nigeria and the Chairman of the Committee.  In the end NOTHING was achieved by the IYV Nigeria Committee.  Incidentally, I was a member of the Nigeria IYV committee.

I will suggest that

• Countries be requested to present reports of their achievements since 2001.
• Countries to set up committees to continue where they stopped (if they did) to enhance volunteering in their countries.
• As was done in Amsterdam at the IAVE World Conference, the conference in Singapore should be held early in 2011 to actually kick start the activities for the year. There should be a significant collaboration in the arrangement between UNV and IAVE at all levels to ensure that countries are fully represented at this conference.  It should be a big celebration for UNV.

MARKING IYV + 10
Many civil organizations do not know about IYV + 10.  UNV should begin now to distribute posters, flyers, and have write ups on the websites.  Perhaps UNV should create a website specifically for IYV+10 where people can have an input.  All these are aimed at creating awareness before 2011; organize competitions on volunteering for civil societies, plays, etc; Involve school children to talk about the advantages of volunteering.

• Government & large corporations to fund small NGOs that use volunteers.  By so doing more people will get into volunteering.
• There should be strong government/civil society partnerships to ensure development of viable organizations that will utilize the services of volunteers.
• In Africa unlike in Europe & America, there are very few volunteer centers.  The development of volunteer centers should be encouraged by government and the United Nations.

Submitted by
Rose Ekeleme, Ph.D
IAVE Vice President & Coordinator IAVE (Nigeria)