Generally equated with selflessness and an attitude of generosity on the part of the individuals who offer it, voluntary service can play an important role in stimulating alternative economic models and providing a collective platform for local development.

The initial motivation of the most common participants in voluntary initiatives consists of acting in difficult situations, or those regarded as problematic, on the premise that their voluntary intervention will at least minimise the negative effects of the situation in question, and in some way attenuate its impact on the people and areas concerned. As a result, it is an intervention of a remedial nature, or sometimes it aims to replace resources which do not exist due to a structural absence of financial means.

However, voluntary service does not have to be limited to this widespread approach and can also be a platform for action with a more far-reaching effect on the life of communities and populations.

It is in this second strand of action that we find a variety of forms of voluntary work which express a personal and collective commitment to social change and which can, in many cases, open doors to new activities and employment opportunities.

Solidarity-based micro-financing collectives are a good example of local volunteering with an impact on the economy and on social inclusion of socially vulnerable sectors of the population. Volunteer groups are organised to make financial resources available locally for use in the establishment of small local businesses, ensuring the complete process of identification and selection of beneficiaries while providing accompaniment to the creators in a monitoring relationship according to the specialisations and professional experience present in the group.

Let’s Plant Portugal

Volunteering in initiatives aimed at protecting the environment and promoting natural products, an example of which is the movement organised around the Vamos Plantar Portugal [Let’s Plant Portugal] platform, stimulates local, solidarity-based economic models of great importance which result in the recovery of family farming and the promotion of products which constitute genuine market niches with great potential and added value.

Another expression of this more proactive trend in volunteering is the self-organisation of people with links to villages and hamlets at high risk of desertification to promote ways to restore and reuse houses and local structures with a view to providing a new lease of life to areas in deep decline and relaunching solidarity-based economic models which directly benefit local residents and open up new prospects for development.

Technological literacy

Last but not least are the voluntary services for the promotion of technological literacy within the framework of adult education and the fostering of informal and non-formal learning. An illustrative example of such initiatives is the sharing of knowledge in public premises which provide access to the Internet and which, in the more isolated villages and hamlets, provide a venue for adults who require support to interact with the technology and equipment available to them. In these venues (town halls, community centres, primary schools and associations), volunteers act spontaneously to satisfy requests for support without the need for formal structures.

It is within the context of these strategic links to local development and adult education, in search of active forms of sustainability and solidarity, that these dynamics of cooperation and social solidarity, which will undoubtedly have a profound influence on our collective future, can be enhanced in this European Year of Volunteering.

Carlos Ribeiro