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Voluntary activities
Three different policy aims for volunteering were identified by the partnership research seminar on voluntary activities July 2004 Budapest: first the relationship to active citizenship and solidarity, second, the relationship to employment and social inclusion, and third the relationship to the provision of social welfare. Consequently the promotion of voluntary activities plays a crucial role in youth policy, particularly at European level.
The Council of Europe recommendation on trans-national and long-term volunteering proposes the removal of the still existing difficulties for volunteering across national boundaries in Europe, and the financial support of individuals or groups who wish to volunteer. It also recommends encouraging increased co-operation between the European Union and the Council of Europe, in order to create an appropriate political, legal and financial framework of support for voluntary service in all European countries. The Convention, sets a legal framework for trans-national volunteering, providing details of the roles and procedures of all the actors involved.
The Council of the European Union calls to eliminate legal and administrative obstacles to voluntary work by ensuring that voluntarism does not replace paid work and to increase European cooperation to facilitate access to information, support training of volunteers, create a network of all those involved and exchange best practice.
Following the new framework of cooperation within the White Paper on Youth process, which identified voluntary activities as a priority issue, the European Commission proposed as an overall goal to develop, facilitate, promote and recognise voluntary activities at all levels. The European Commission has proposed four common objectives:
- to develop voluntary activities with the aim of enhancing the transparency of the existing possibilities, enlarging their scope and improving their quality;
- to make it easier for young people to carry out voluntary activities by removing the existing obstacles;
- to promote voluntary activities with a view to reinforcing young people's solidarity and engagement as citizens;
- to recognise voluntary activities of young people with a view to acknowledging their personal skills and their commitment to society.
In order to ensure that these objectives are achieved, concrete measures for each objective are proposed. Member States will report on the implementation by the end of 2006.
See also the questionnaires on Participation filled up by the EKCYP correspondants
Related Key Documents:
European convention on the promotion of a transnational long-term voluntary service for young people European Treaty Series - No. 175 (Strasbourg, 11.V.2000)
Recommendation on the promotion of a voluntary service Rec(94)4E adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 24 May 1994
Follow-up to the White Paper on a New Impetus for European Youth.
Proposed common objectives for voluntary activities among young people COM(2004) 337 in response to the Council Resolution of 27 June 2002 regarding the framework of European cooperation in the youth fiel
d
"Charting the landscape of European youth voluntary activities", Howard Williamson and Bryony Hoskins with Philipp Boetzelen (Ed.)
This publication provide a starting point for developing future strategies for the implementation of policy on young people's voluntary activities.
Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2005 ; ISBN 92-871-5826-6 Place an order
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