These days I have been fortunate to be able to participate in the IVCO2024 conference, International Volunteering 2024, a space for dialogue and learning that every year promotes the IVCO2024 network, of which Volies has just become a part, Forum International Volunteering.
These conferences have been taking place since 2001, bringing together government agencies (Norway, Korea, France, Japan, …) and international NGOs (Peace Corps, Humanity for Humanity, Crossroads International, Cuso International, …), and have been the spaces from which international volunteering has been promoted for the last 20 years.
It has been a few days not only of learning but also of inspiration. Just to be talking about the future of volunteering over coffee, well tea (the conference was in New Castle) with a group of people from Malaysia, New Zealand, Canada and Norway was priceless. Passionate about volunteering from 40 nationalities.
Building & Sustaining Connections for Change
The theme of the conference was ‘Building & Sustaining Connections for Change: Volunteering for Solidarity’ and was approached from the complex context of a world that is increasingly fractured, in constant conflict and where populisms continue to gain strength. This context gave the talks a very special nuance.
For my part, in addition to a lot of ideas, good friends, energy and a couple of initiatives that we are going to try out in Volies, I am left with an idea that is sometimes not taken into account as it should be in volunteer programmes. The simile of a bridge, very appropriate in a city that is proud of its 7 bridges, by the way, each one totally different from the other, like each volunteering project and like each person.
The simile of a bridge 🌉
The idea we were working on was that, like a bridge, the only way to build a proper and lasting relationship in volunteering is from both sides and in a balanced way, not from a position where one group of people come to solve all the problems of another group in a disadvantaged situation, and this is something that often marks volunteering projects.
We tend to think that, from this dominant position, we understand better than anyone else what other people need, and often we do not even stop to ask and listen sincerely to what these other people really need.
This act, that of sincere listening, is what should initiate a volunteering project and mark its entire execution, otherwise, we run the risk that not only is the effort of our volunteers of little use, but it can sometimes be counterproductive for both parties, and imagine what happens to our teams when they leave an activity or project with the feeling that they do not really know what they have done and if it has really made sense.
I return to Spain with my backpack full of ideas, with a broader and richer vision of what volunteering is, with many new friends and, above all, with the conviction that what we do is extremely important, especially in this context of a world in the process of fracturing.