The changing nature of volunteering and the cross-border mobility: where does learning come from?

Abstract

This paper revisits the more conventional approaches of volunteering, by looking into the experiences of young people involved in long-term cross-border volunteering in Romania. Drawing on qualitative interviews with European Voluntary Service volunteers, the paper examines how this experience is intersecting their learning trajectories. The research argues that volunteering is more complex than previously assumed and calls for a way to overcome the inertia that positions it as inherently altruistic. It argues that hosting organisations and young people may hold different expectations and notions of volunteering. Whilst organisations seem to understand volunteering as a ‘gift of time’, for young people volunteering is rationally driven and instrumental for learning. The paper argues that cross-border volunteering has a silent educational potential that remains underutilised and grounded in an established rhetoric of learning as inherent when volunteering. Ultimately, the article calls for organisations to be proactive in enhancing their educational potential and to embrace deliberate strategies that support volunteers learning.

Keywords:

• young people
• international volunteering
• non-formal learning

Notes

1. EVS is a major programme for young people, with a strong focus on non-formal, intercultural learning. It is based on organisations’ partnership and full-time, long-term volunteer's contributions. Volunteers receive costs reimbursement and an allowance. The host placement offers a ‘clearly defined role for the volunteer, with a variety of tasks and good (non-formal) learning opportunities’ and mentorship. The learning is being recognised through a Youthpass, which is part of a European strategy for the recognition of competencies acquired non-formally.

2. 2011 was the European Year of Volunteering and the UN 10th anniversary of the International Year of Volunteers.

3. See also the terms ‘shrinking’ or ‘revolving door’ or ‘drop-by’/‘plug-in’ volunteering cited in Hustinx (2001).

4. The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action even situated cross-border volunteering as one of the five emerging patterns of volunteerism (together with employee volunteering, episodic volunteering, virtual volunteering and VolunTourism).

5. Yet, the findings need to be tested through further research on representative samples of volunteers.