Universal Declaration on Volunteering, adopted by the Board of Directors of
the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE), January 2001, The
Netherlands.
Volunteering is a fundamental building block of civil society. It brings to
life the noblest aspirations of humankind - the pursuit of peace, freedom,
opportunity, safety, and justice for all people.
In this era of globalization and continuous change, the world is becoming
smaller, more interdependent, and more complex. Volunteering - either through
individual or group action - is a way in which:
- human values of community, caring, and serving can be sustained and
strengthened;
- individuals can exercise their rights and responsibilities as members of
communities, while learning and growing throughout their lives, realizing
their full human potential;
- and, connections can be made across differences that push us apart so that
we can live together in healthy, sustainable communities, working together to
provide innovative solutions to our shared challenges and to shape our
collective destinies.
At the dawn of the new millennium, volunteering is an essential element of
all societies. It turns into practical, effective action the declaration of the
United Nations that "We, the Peoples" have the power to change the world.
This Declaration supports the right of every woman, man and child to
associate freely and to volunteer regardless of their cultural and ethnic
origin, religion, age, gender, and physical, social or economic condition. All
people in the world should have the right to freely offer their time, talent,
and energy to others and to their communities through individual and collective
action, without expectation of financial reward.
We seek the development of volunteering that:
- elicits the involvement of the entire community in identifying and
addressing its problems;
- encourages and enables youth to make leadership through service a
continuing part of their lives;
- provides a voice for those who cannot speak for themselves;
- enables others to participate as volunteers;
- complements but does not substitute for responsible action by other
sectors and the efforts of paid workers;
- enables people to acquire new knowledge and skills and to fully develop
their personal potential, self-reliance and creativity;
- promotes family, community, national and global solidarity.
We believe that volunteers and the organizations and communities that they
serve have a shared responsibility to:
- create environments in which volunteers have meaningful work that helps to
achieve agreed upon results;
- define the criteria for volunteer participation, including the conditions
under which the organization and the volunteer may end their commitment, and
develop policies to guide volunteer activity;
- provide appropriate protections against risks for volunteers and those
they serve:
- provide volunteers with appropriate training, regular evaluation, and
recognition;
- ensure access for all by removing physical, economic, social, and cultural
barriers to their participation.
Taking into account basic human rights as expressed in the United Nations
Declaration on Human Rights, the principles of volunteering and the
responsibilities of volunteers and the organizations in which they are involved,
we call on:
All volunteers to proclaim their belief in volunteer action as a creative and
mediating force that:
- builds healthy, sustainable communities that respect the dignity of all
people;
- empowers people to exercise their rights as human beings and, thus, to
improve their lives;
- helps solve social, cultural, economic and environmental problems;
and,
- builds a more humane and just society through worldwide
cooperation.
The leaders of:
- all sectors to join together to create strong, visible, and effective
local and national "volunteer centres" as the primary leadership organizations
for volunteering;
- government to ensure the rights of all people to volunteer, to remove any
legal barriers to participation, to engage volunteers in its work, and to
provide resources to NGOs to promote and support the effective mobilization
and management of volunteers;
- business to encourage and facilitate the involvement of its workers in the
community as volunteers and to commit human and financial resources to develop
the infrastructure needed to support volunteering;
- the media to tell the stories of volunteers and to provide information
that encourages and assists people to volunteer;
- education to encourage and assist people of all ages to volunteer,
creating opportunities for them to reflect on and learn from their
service;
- religion to affirm volunteering as an appropriate response to the
spiritual call to all people to serve;
- NGOs to create organizational environments that are friendly to volunteers
and to commit the human and financial resources that are required to
effectively engage volunteers.
The United Nations to:
- declare this to be the "Decade of Volunteers and Civil Society" in
recognition of the need to strengthen the institutions of free societies;
and,
- recognize the "red V" as the universal symbol for volunteering.
IAVE challenges volunteers and leaders of all sectors throughout the world to
unite as partners to promote and support effective volunteering, accessible to
all, as a symbol of solidarity among all peoples and nations. IAVE invites the
global volunteer community to study, discuss, endorse and bring into being this
Universal Declaration on Volunteering.
Adopted by the international board of directors of IAVE - The International
Association for Volunteer Effort at its 16th World Volunteer Conference,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, January 2001, the International Year of
Volunteers.