Volunteering as a strategy to foster youth civic participation in southern Africa by Helene Perold
Presentation to XIX IAVE World Volunteer Conference, Delhi, November 2006: Volunteering for Peace in Multicultural Societies prepared by Helene Perold
The concept of service and volunteering is part of the African philosophy of ubuntu, which denotes caring and sharing, and has formed part of the social fabric of African countries for many centuries.
In Africa, “a tradition of self-help, individual and collective responsibility for the well being of families and kinship groups predates the colonial era” and “youth community service can be traced to pre-colonial times when youth were organized into age sets that were mobilized for the defense of the community as well as in the construction of infrastructure such as roads and bridges” (Patel & Wilson, 2004).
Colonialism introduced a completely different set of values and, in most cases, colonial governments did not invest significant resources in the development of African communities, except when the development of local people was necessary for the welfare of the colonial rulers. Under these circumstances, the spirit of cooperation and reciprocity persisted in indigenous communities. Years later, the struggle for independence in Africa and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa saw many examples of citizen activism. In the post-colonial African context and in post-apartheid South Africa, voluntary organizations continued to contribute significantly to development and nation building.
However, with the advent of independence, nationalist governments across Africa were eager to change the conditions that had been created under colonialism. The desire of governments to leave the past behind and to pursue new development philosophies, coupled with high government revenues resulting from rapid economic growth and the nationalisation of the foreign-denominated private sector, meant that governments invested in social development without requiring local voluntary contributions. This fostered expectations that government would provide in all respects, and impacted negatively on the spirit of volunteerism that had been a major feature of African societies even before colonialism (Osei-Hwedie and Bar-On, 1999). In the post-independence environment, a number of African countries created national youth service programmes with the intention of involving young people in national development. In some instances, however, these programmes became strongly militaristic in orientation and were used by the ruling party to entrench its position.
In the 1970s, many African countries (along with countries elsewhere in the world) experienced economic crises characterised by lack of growth, high rates of inflation, rising foreign and internal debts, high unemployment, shortages of basic goods, and crumbling infrastructure (Osei-Hwedie and Bar-On, 1999). In the face of these difficulties, countries had no option but to agree to structural adjustment programmes introduced by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. This led to a renewed drive to shift some of the burdens of development on to individuals and communities and, in the process, the voluntary sector was revitalised. A similar trend is seen today in Zimbabwe as citizens revert to traditional forms of mutual aid for food security in the face of that country’s political and economic crisis.
Many voluntary organisations in southern Africa are community based, but there is also a significant layer of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating with donor support. Over the years both types of organisations have come to play a significant role in social development.
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