Promoting volunteerism in Nepal

Volunteerism in Nepal is in a critical juncture. Occasionally praised but even more often neglected and forgotten, Nepal is losing a great opportunity to harness the power of service.

Once in a while, you read about new initiatives aimed at mobilizing volunteers for different development purposes. You read about big numbers, thousands of volunteers impacting at grassroots level.

While any programs mobilizing volunteers should be welcome and seen positively, provided that certain ethical standards and practices are upheld, this more “utilitarian” approach could also be shortsighted and limited in the scope of action and in its broader impact.

Therefore it is high time the Government prepared a comprehensive strategy to harness the potential of volunteers in the country, recognizing, once for all, their invaluable contributions.

There are many ways of volunteering: part time, full time, formally or informally, nationally or internationally driven or a combination of both.

All the forms and approaches are legitimate but here we should not forget that volunteerism is first most a way of living.

Volunteerism is not only a pass for achieving truly active citizenship, one of the deepest forms of experiencing democracy at grassroots level but must be seen  as a personal developmental enhancer.

While it is important to frame it in terms of outcomes and impact, it is also very critical to understand the intrinsic values attached to it and its contributions to shape the character of a person.

Volunteerism helps a person gain self esteem, confidence and key values and attitudes that can make the difference in the way citizens relate and contribute to the society.

That is why the country needs a strategic approach to volunteerism that contributes to the development of the nation and at the same time supports the holistic development of its citizens.

To achieve both aims, we need to invest in creating infrastructures at federal, state and local levels.

Many development countries have a central body promoting volunteerism. In the case of the United States, we have for example the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal institution that works with state level commissions mandated to promote and support volunteering initiatives.  The Corporation also designs and fund national volunteering service programs implemented locally.

In Australia there is Volunteering Australia, a national charity that has been evolving along the time, following the merging of the Australian Association for Volunteering (AAV) and the National Association of Volunteer Referral Agencies (NAVRA). The Federal government better known as Commonwealth Government played and is still playing a very important role in supporting Volunteering Australia.

In the case of Nepal we have the recently established National Youth Council that could assume the function of a central level body mandated to promote volunteerism across the nation.

The only caveat is that volunteerism, by nature, should embraced by every citizens, regardless the age.

Yet the National Youth Council has the potential to play the role of “umbrella” organization to boost and support volunteerism among youths.

This would necessarily imply a strong coordination with other ministries, especially the Ministry of Education that could attach some of its personnel to the National Youth Council in a special unit or section mandated to promote service at school level.

Fully embracing volunteerism, the National Youth Council could come up with a National Youth Volunteering Policy that would also entail modalities to cooperate with and involve other age groups and stakeholders.

There is a wide scope to come up with new national volunteering programs to be implemented in collaboration with the state governments across the nation, programs that could effectively empower local youths in few and selected national priorities areas.

In such scenario, the National Volunteering Strategy should envision partnership modalities with local social purpose organizations grounded at local level.

I am referring here to legally registered NGOs but also to local youth clubs who are spread out across the nation.

The latter group already fully embraces the key traits of volunteerism, the spirit of selfless dedication and unpaid community work.

Working closely with the local youth clubs will offer a cost effective ways to promote volunteerism as the clubs could also “double” as local volunteering centers or hubs.

Volunteering centers are playing a very important role all over the world as supporting and very importantly agile institutions to train and boost local volunteering initiatives.

While certain standards will have to be complied with, the grassroots nature of the local youth clubs is itself sustainable as they are already active. What they need is support and guidance.

Ensuring that the National Youth Council becomes a catalyst for the promotion of service is vital but at the same time we should not forget the important role played since many years by the National Development Volunteering Service, NDVS.

Its role should not be seen necessarily in contrast with the National Youth Council but instead could be complementary: on the one hand, we could have NDVS, focused on professional, full time, allowances compensated technical service not only targeting fresh graduates but, for example,  also retirees.

Back to the USA, the Corporation for National and Community Service is supporting an array of Senior Corps programs targeting citizens above 55.

If you think that civil servants in Nepal retire at very early age, there is a big opportunity for them to continue to play an active role in the society.

At the same time, the National Youth Council could instead focus on more informal, unpaid kind of volunteerism whose unique way, being implemented by youths, with a strong attention towards those from marginalized groups, embeds its core values at the best.

The National Planning Commission or the Ministry of Local and Federal Affairs should coordinate an apex National Volunteering Council, as a light mechanism that would supervise all the volunteering efforts in the country.

Cooperation and partnerships among government agencies and with the broader society, including the not for profit and for profit sectors are the only way to really unleash volunteerism in Nepal.