In celebration of Volunteers’ Week 2020

In this blog, Dr Fidèle Mutwarasibo, Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Voluntary Sector Leadership, explores why we should celebrate volunteering. This week, we are marking the National Volunteers’ Week. It is timely to remember the difference millions of volunteers make in the daily lives of many. Although we are in difficult times, he argues that volunteering will be critical in the post-COVID-19 pandemic’s new normal.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Mahatma Gandhi

Volunteers make a difference in the lives of many people across the UK. They do this often without getting the recognition they deserve. This week (June 1st - 7th), we are celebrating National Volunteers’ Week. Volunteers' Week takes place annually between 1 - 7 June.

The week offers a chance to celebrate and say thank you for the contribution millions of volunteers make across the UK. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many are focusing on supporting volunteers to take on coronavirus-related volunteering roles to help communities cope with the many consequences of coronavirus.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted on many volunteers’ activities, and it looks likely that the new normal after the pandemic will look different for volunteers, just like other members of society. The pandemic did not mean the end of volunteering, but it created new forms of volunteering. Supporting our neighbours, especially vulnerable ones, was a timely and critical response. Clapping for heroes on Thursdays and other ways of expressing gratitude for front line workers was another response that volunteers contributed to and supported. Fundraising activities, though impacted by the situation, kept going though differently. Captain Tom Moore reminded us through his fundraising, that we could all make a difference. Calling and maintaining contacts with our friends and family who live on their own was an essential aspect of our lives. Organising virtual religious services, providing tuition for those of us unable to use modern communications tools and equipment, are some of the many initiatives that we witnessed during the pandemic.

These volunteering activities, among others, highlight the fact that most of us have been volunteers at some stage in our lives. If we have not been, it is not too late. Volunteers are the glue that makes our society work better. 

The voluntary sector complements the work of the public sector and the corporate sector. Very often, vital work to support the vulnerable and those on the margins of society is done on minimal resources. Without thousands of volunteers, the voluntary sector would not survive. Their roles cover a broad spectrum from welcoming guest and visitors to a community centre to corporate governance as a trustee. By and large, volunteers’ work goes unnoticed, and most volunteers don’t expect to be recognised. Their passion and seeing the smile on the face of those they serve is often more than enough as a reward. Individual volunteers sometimes get recognition, but this is not what drive most volunteers. In Milton Keynes, volunteers were recently honoured on one of the three newly engraved pillars at the Milton Keynes Rose. The fabulous Mahatma Gandhi quotation highlighted above features on the pillar for the Volunteers’ Week and captured the essence of the difference volunteers make in the communities across the country. 

In light of the social mission of The Open University, and in response to the difficulties actors in the voluntary sector face in accessing personal development in the sector, the Centre for Voluntary Sector Leadership (CVSL) has developed resources to support the voluntary sector. These include courses on Developing Leadership Practice in Voluntary Organisations and Collaborative Leadership in Voluntary Organisations. Also, CVSL and Volunteer Scotland developed a course on Involving Volunteers.

CVSL wishes all the volunteers across the UK a good Volunteers’ Week.

2nd June 2020