September 2008 Feature Articles

• 8^th Global Conference on National Youth Service 
• Volunteerism and the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics

By Elizabeth Brouwer, ICP Intern

The 8^th Global Conference on National Youth Service will take place in Paris, France this fall from 19-22 November, 2008.  The conference will be held at the Fondation des Etats-Unis and will be hosted by Innovations in Civic Participation (ICP), Unis-Cite, and the Association of Voluntary Service Organizations (AVSO). This conference is an exciting opportunity for professionals in the field of youth development to come together to discuss the potential for national youth service to promote community and youth development. Past participants have come from 48 different countries on six continents, as well as from several international organizations.

The goal of the Global Conference is to provide a forum for IANYS members and other international youth development professionals to share information and discuss developments in national youth service programs and policies in Europe and around the world. The Conference will take place over the course of four days and will include an optional session on policy and program development, a combination of plenary sessions, round table presentations, smaller workshops, and a service project. Round table sessions will address issues of scaling up programs, measuring program impacts, social inclusion, and service-learning. Smaller workshops will be offered on a variety of topics including meeting critical community needs through service, developing regional networks, comparing program models, stimulating private sector investment, and building a research agenda around youth service.

Exciting keynote speakers will be in attendance, including Dr. Kumi Naidoo, the Honorary President of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. Naidoo is an experienced and knowledgeable speaker on youth and development, having served on the Panel of Eminent Persons on UN Civil Society Relations and the steering committee of the World Economic Forum's Global Governance Initiative. He also chairs the International Facilitation Group of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty.

Registration is available online.  Registration rates are $375 for an NGO Representative; $425 for a University Representative, Independent Researcher or Other; and $500 for a Government Representative.  For more information, including preliminary conference agenda, online registration or IANYS background, please visit our website at www.icicp.org/ianys.

Volunteerism and the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics

By Alicia Lovett, ICP Intern, and Kelly Fox, ICP Office Manager

The athletic accomplishments of the 2008 Summer Olympics - American Michael Phelps' 8 gold medals in men's swimming, Jamaican Usain Bolt's record-shattering sprints in the men's 100 and 200 meters, China becoming the first nation besides the USA and former Soviet Union to lead in total number of gold medals won, Mongolia and India winning their first gold medals ever - are now recorded in the annals in Olympic history. But beyond the athleticism, the Beijing Olympics has left behind a new and invigorated spirit of volunteerism in China.

According to the official Beijing Olympics website, an unprecedented 1.7 million individuals were selected as Olympic volunteers from a pool of over two million applicants. 100,000 of these volunteers worked directly in the venues of the Olympics and Paralympics, while another 400,000 city volunteers and one million society volunteers donated their time in providing visitor information, translation services, first-aid assistance, and traffic direction.

Western-style volunteerism, with its emphasis on providing organized and readily available volunteer opportunities to the public, is relatively new to China.[1] The Chinese focus has traditionally been on service within the context of the family and immediate community, and historically there has been a lack of public awareness of volunteering opportunities and little media coverage of volunteer efforts. Lu Yongzheng, secretary of the Secretariat of the Committee, speaking on his goals for popularizing volunteer service, notes that volunteerism has not yet been completely integrated into Chinese public life, and that the benefits are still being recognized by the public.[2]

There are encouraging signs, though, that the spirit of volunteerism harnessed by the Beijing Olympics will continue to grow beyond the Closing Ceremony. David Brettel, director of the volunteer program of the Sydney Committee for Olympic Games and consultant for the volunteer program in Beijing, notes that since the Sydney Olympics in 2000, the number of volunteers in Australia has grown by 25 percent to over 4 million as people, inspired by the example of the Sydney 2000 Olympics, have come to realize the importance of volunteering. Brettel describes the Beijing Olympics as having taken a great leap forward from Sydney: "In my opinion, the volunteer program of Beijing Olympic Games will be a new benchmark, as Beijing has designed a much better plan than any other city, especially the massive city volunteer program. Beijing is unique. If successful, the volunteer program in the future will change."[3]

The Beijing Olympics have inspired a number of initiatives to foster a greater sense of civic service in China. Last December, Beijing effected a regulation promoting volunteer work by describing hundreds of types of volunteer work available, raising public awareness of opportunities for civic service and making it more convenient for citizens to become involved. Since then, volunteerism has increased rapidly and volunteers are becoming a growing social force in China, as demonstrated by the outpouring of relief and rescue work by nearly 5 million volunteers in the aftermath of the May earthquake in the Sichuan province.[4]

China seeks to sustain this enthusiasm for volunteering post-Olympics. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), United Nations Volunteers, Beijing Youth League, Marie Stopes International (MSI), and the Red Cross Society of China joined forces in June and July to launch a number of training and volunteerism programs for Olympic volunteers in a bid to support volunteerism as a resource for development in China. In one June project, 5,500 young volunteers from 12 universities participated in intensive training on HIV prevention and antidiscrimination, while an additional 100,000 volunteers received a basic information package on HIV. "Engaging some of China's most capable young people and making them the messengers of positive and correct knowledge on HIV can help dispel inaccurate myths and break down the stigma and discrimination against people affected by HIV," said Bernhard Schwartlander, the UNAIDS Country Coordinator in China.[5]

Other projects promoting environmental awareness and volunteerism as a development resources are part of the US$1.4million "Strengthening Volunteerism for Development in China through the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games" initiative by the UNDP, UNV, and their Chinese partners.[6] This initiative has especially focused on tapped into the volunteerism of university students and young people in China. Young people who succeeded in earning a place as a Beijing Olympic volunteer are among brightest hopes for China's future leadership, making them an ideal population in which to instill values of volunteering and advocacy on HIV and other development issues. "It is our hope that Olympic volunteers will share this knowledge and look for opportunities to continue volunteering on important development issues such as raising awareness of HIV" said UNDP Country Director Subinay Nandy.[7]

As part of the preparations for the Olympics, young volunteers have undergone extensive general, professional, and venue training. These skills learned from their volunteer experience with the Beijing Olympics will equip Chinese young people with the skills and experience needed to continue contributing to their communities post-Olympics. Long after the stadium lights at the "Bird's Nest" have dimmed, Chinese young people inspired by the Olympics with a new passion for volunteering will turn to addressing the social and development issues facing modern China.