Volunteer Week a family affair
This year Volunteer Awareness Week will be celebrated between 20 and 26 June with the theme ‘Volunteering Across the Generations’.
A key objective of the week will be to encourage more people to volunteer – ‘raising people not money’. The theme will highlight the opportunities for volunteering across all generations, how different forms of volunteering appeal to particular generational groups and will provide examples of intergenerational volunteering, including family volunteering.
Family volunteering is a way in which all members of a family can serve their community together. The activities for the week will acknowledge and demonstrate the contribution of these volunteers and encourage people from all generations to join in.
A one-day workshop on youth volunteering will be one of two national events to be held during the week. The second will be the release of the report on a recent survey of those who manage volunteers. Both events will be hosted by Volunteering New Zealand (VNZ), the national co-ordinating agency for the week and the organisation that supports, represents and promotes volunteering in this country.
The volunteer manager survey report will be jointly released by VNZ and Victoria University on Wednesday 23 June at Victoria University's Thorndon Campus where the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, the Honourable Tariana Turia, will speak.
The survey was undertaken by Victoria over summer with support from VNZ. Over 800 responses were received from agencies around the country operating volunteer programmes.
Both national events reflect the Volunteering Across the Generations theme. Young people are an important generation – they are our volunteers now and in the future. Meanwhile, managers of volunteers face challenges recruiting and managing volunteers across all generations and this will be highlighted in the survey report.
The workshop, with a very determined name ‘Mission Possible’ planned for Tuesday 22 June in Wellington, will highlight the perspectives of young people and what organisations need to do to involve them in their programmes.
With VNZ as co-ordinator, young people themselves will lead the workshops. A large number of young volunteers from around New Zealand have already signed-up to be among the 20 participants. On the day, they will work together with 10 senior representatives from a number of organisations looking to identify reasons more young people do not volunteer and what organisations can do to change this.
As co-ordinator of Volunteer Awareness Week, VNZ will provide information and resources for the week with Volunteer Centres across the country helping communities arrange and publicise events. Posters and balloons will be are available for all organisations putting on special events to mark Volunteer Awareness Week.
More information on events happening during the week, as well as a toolkit to assist organisations with their planning is available from VNZ’s website:
