Results of the IAVE´S 5th Latin American Regional Volunteer Conference

The IAVE's 5th Latin American Regional Volunteer Conference “Volunteering, the Essence of Social Responsibility” took place in Bogotá, Colombia from September 27th- 29th. More than 250 delegates, representing a variety of voluntary organizations, corporate programs, universities and governments, all committed to establishing a fruitful dialogue, encouraging the development of volunteerism in the region and improving the quality of work with volunteers.
The event was historic, given that the last Regional Volunteering Conference was held a decade ago, and in the words of the president of Colombia IAVE organizer, Alicia Cubillos, the conference "brought together the feeling of and desire for union based on common goals and interests, not only in Latin America but the entire world, as well as promoting and building relationships on the basis of social commitment, justice and equality".
Held at Pontifical Javeriana University in the Colombian capital, the conference revolved around the concept of social responsibility with particular attention on 3 key areas for development: youth volunteering, corporate volunteering and volunteer management.  It served to create a real exchange of experiences and knowledge among members, national representatives, partners and friends of  IAVE from over 20 countries in the region and around the world and through successful sharing of experiences and models, it had the potential to improve the work of volunteers and organizations.
The Regional Conference was attended by national and international organizations like the Red Cross, United Nations Volunteers, Partners of the Americas and IAVE. There were three presentations made by the world president of IAVE, Dr. Kang Hyun Lee, South Korea, who spoke about social responsibility and volunteerism HYPERLINK , the management, planning and training of volunteers and the nature, functions and duties of local and national centers of volunteering. Among the many works we would like to highlight are the "Conceptual framework for social responsibility" , by Camilo Santa, "How to build a solid Corporate Volunteer Council", and "The Vital Force Volunteer Institution's 'Humanitarians in the World techniques for managing volunteers'", by Fabio Betancur. All presentations are only in Spanish.
Youth Colombian Daniel Buriticá, IAVE director, and Lluc Martí, director of the IAVE Youth Office in Catalonia shared about the power of young volunteers and global trends and impact of youth volunteering in social, human and economical development in different world regions, respectively and animated delegates to incorporate new technologies and younger generations in the daily life in their organizations to be more to ready to deal with an increasing changing and complex reality "In Latin America,  the world region which is categorized by having the highest level of inequity and where half of the population are young people, organizations can only achieve their social objectives as far as they are able to empower and give responsibility to young people as volunteers".
In the Closing ceremony the IAVE executive director Kathleen Dennis highlighted the importance of international networking and partnerships and recognized the excellent work done by organizers, a young team presented the main features of the upcoming IAVE Second Global Youth Volunteering Summit, which will take place in November 2011 in Barranquilla, Colombia, the IAVE Colombia national award was given to IAVE World President Dr.Kang Hyun Lee and the up going  IAVE director, representative for the Latin American region, Maria Teresa Gnecco made an emotional closing speech.