Volunteers to benefit from formal policies

LookAtVietnam – A voluntary group of cyclists interested in caring for the environment wanted to attract attention to their cause but they didn’t know how to go about it.

Young volunteers from Long Bien District, Ha Noi, pick up rubbish as part of Young Volunteer Month.

With 60 permanent and 2,000 non-permanent members, “Cycling for the Environment” needs some self promotion to attract financial support, but the group’s chairman Viet Tien said they couldn’t get the show off the ground.

Another group, the Viet Nam Red Cross, was also disorganised and unprofessional in many ways.

Red Cross deputy chairman Doan Van Thai said the situation was perplexing.

“Sometimes we enthusiastically sent volunteers to communities but we did not really understand their need,” he said. “It was the result of poor research.”

Both of these instances underline the reason for setting up a three-year project to enhance voluntary work under the banner of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union and the United Nations Development Programme.

The project, which was kicked off late last week, also aimed to set up an information centre of voluntary forces and to build policies on voluntary work and enhance the public awareness of its importance to the country’s development.

Voluntary organisations in Viet Nam have become more diverse, said union information and archive centre director Tran Thu.

Over the past decade, the youth union alone had mobilised a large number of young volunteers to help communities, particularly in summer.

Social activities for instance, taking care of disadvantaged children, helping the poor, blood donation or going to far-flung areas were attractive to the young, he said.

Such campaigns as Green Summer, helping university candidates before entrance examination and bringing doctors to villages attracted many students.

In the former imperial city of Hue alone, there were more than 100 voluntary groups specialising in environment protection and serving cultural events in Hue festivals for example.

There were voluntary groups using the internet as a tool to collect volunteers and promote their programmes, for instance: Cycling for the Environment.

Sandra Veloso, of the UN Volunteer staff, agreed that voluntary work in Viet Nam had the potential for development but, she said, the voluntary organisations themselves had failed to co-operate to boost their performances.

That’s why, a network connecting the organisations was necessary so they could support each other, she said.

It was also important to improve academic knowledge and skills for volunteers, said member of the youth union’s department for rural young people Tran Thi Huong Thao.

“Typical features of young volunteers are that they are full of energy and enthusiasm,” Thao said. “Yet, if they are not armed with practical skills they will face various difficulties at work.”

Improving organisers’ abilities was also important.

Most of the people participating in a conference launching the project last week shared the view that to boost effectiveness of voluntary works it was necessary for the organisations and local volunteers to network.

Building policies for voluntary work was, said Thu, who is also the project’s deputy director, the most important factor in making the volunteering more effective.

The policies would regulate criteria and priorities for volunteers. They would answer such questions as what benefits volunteers were eligible to enjoy or what insurance was available if they had to take risks.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News