World Volunteer Day
Yesterday was the World Volunteer Day, an important day for fostering free commitment for the well-being of humanity. Volunteer work is not just a one-day festival, but a way to pay back to life what we have got for free.
The United Nations have just launched a redesigned platform, onlinevolunteering.org, where volunteers can find opportunities for activities and organisations can find volunteers (site in English, French and Spanish). The Red Cross here in Switzerland, where I work (as a professional, not as volunteer – my volunteer work is in other fields) is also chairing a forum, in 3 languages, for volunteer work in different organisations. And they are running an ad-campaign for thanking all the volunteers for their work and inspiring more volunteers to take action. Volunteer work is one of the 7 principles of the Red Cross organisations world-wide.
Volunteer work is often a silent activity not noticed by the masses. But it is most important to keep our society well functioning – particularly in fields where no money is spent to do the needed activities. Especially women do a lot of free work – and so Volunteer Day is a good occasion to commemorate these activities – not only on World Volunteer Day.
A poster of the ICRC-Campaign: “Our World – Your Move”.
