A “Wave for Social Change”: The Power and Limits of Volunteering Action

In a recent trip to Singapore, I came to know how the Government recently decided to provide trained social workers to the schools with children with special learning conditions.

Through this intervention the targeted children will be able to advance with their own learning process at their own space based on a particularly tailored made teaching methodology and coaching thanks to the deployment of highly skilled professionals.

As a believer of the power harnessed by volunteering action to achieve social change, I started reflecting a bit about the boundaries of the volunteering actions, about what volunteerism can and cannot do and about people’s expectations from it.

Why didn’t the Government of Singapore mobilize volunteers to support the target group? The reason is simple: volunteerism is not panacea for all problems and certain problems require technical expertise, manpower and resources that only professional paid workers can offer.

Certainly volunteering steps in where there is an unmet need, when, for example, the state, for many different reasons, is unable to address a particular issue or situation.

When resources are not available, there is no other option than relying on the power of volunteers ready to take action on their own and be the change.

Still volunteering is not meant to solve all the problems faced by the humankind but rather offer an important contribution, possibly complimentary to other actions, to address a particular problem or situation.

What if money is not the problem like in the case of Singapore? What’s the role of volunteering action in prosperous societies?

In certain situations, even with abundant resources available, volunteering could still offer the best option available, especially if it is totally driven by the resolve of citizens to be part of the solution. The best example I have here is the night medical emergency service back in my home town in the outskirts of Milan, totally run by highly trained volunteers.

The local authorities have a duty to support and they do sustain the emergency service as much as they can, including the cost of emergency training and examination for budding emergency volunteers.

As far as the volunteers provide an excellent life saving service, there is no a real reason to replace them with paid health workers but the scope, meaning and impact of a volunteering intervention should be always carefully analyzed. We need to ensure that volunteers, first of all, do not do any harm and second, have a meaningful role with a positive impact.

In case of developing countries, I do sometimes feel that volunteering promoting agencies, in their admirable efforts of proving and showcasing the changes achieved thanks to the volunteering actions and hopefully, at the same time, nourishing a culture of service at local level, risk overstretching a bit the concept itself of volunteerism.

Volunteerism can yes reduce poverty, inequality and unjust societal practices but it does not offer a magic wand capable of solving all problems faced by societies.

So when in developing countries we talk about volunteering for poverty eradication, I always try to figure out how volunteerism can compliment ongoing efforts being taking place by different actors and stakeholders.

For this reason, whatever volunteering based intervention is planned, it is paramount to seek the support of the “broader” system, first and foremost the state and all other related stakeholders.

Otherwise we risk using volunteerism as a shortcut and “value for money” approach to reduce poverty, a sort of cheap manpower with no added value.

Volunteering should rather unfold an interesting process, what I call a “the wave for social change” that well transcends the classic boundaries of the volunteering to include networking and campaigning.

In this way the “volunteering wave” can induce a systematic change, the best answer to any challenges faced by the society.

A group of citizens can start offering a basic service on their own but progressively they can start networking with mass media outlets to give a certain visibility to the problem; they can get engaged with local civil society organizations and last but not the least, demanding action from local elected representatives or state agencies at local levels. They can even set up collaboration with local authorities for the provision of particular service like the emergency service back home.

At the end, there are many ways to tackle a problem and the “wave for social change” is a real interplay of actions, a mix of interventions: the state allocating adequate resources for provisions of new services like in the case of learning disabilities in Singapore, then you can add the mobilization of volunteers and the active participation of the civil society to compliment that specific intervention.

It would be interesting to see how trained volunteers can support the work of the social workers being deployed in the learning disabilities intervention in Singapore. By recognizing the limitations of volunteering action, you build the foundation for its success.