Seasons Greetings

Some sayings from across the religious spectrum for this time of year





Christmas will be celebrated Dec 25 by most of Christendom. The Armenian Apostolic Church observes Christmas on January 6, while certain Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate Christmas on January 7


What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.
Agnes M. Pharo 




Hanukkah starts on the Hebrew calendar date of 25 Kislev, and lasts for eight days. In 2011, this will be December 20-28




A candle is a small thing.
But one candle can light another.
And see how its own light increases,
as a candle gives its flame to the other.
You are such a light.
Moshe Davis and Victor Ratner




Hijra - Islamic New Year was on  November 26  
I was trying to find an appropriate quote. Any ideas/advice?




Diwali was on Wednesday, October 26, 2011.


Fill the Heart with the oil of love.
Place in it the wick of single-pointed mind.
Light it with the Knowledge of Truth and remove
the darkness of ignorance around you.
Just as one lamp can light many lamps; let each
youth kindle this Light in many hearts.'

Reflections on the Volunteerism Industry

Esme Barratt who I work with in Adelaide, Australia, drew my attention to an article in the Australian newspaper by Frank Ferudi called "Do Good Our Way" in which he challenges the development of the "volunteerism industry [my words]. It is a very thought provoking article.

His premise starts:  What endowed volunteering with an attractive moral quality was that people performed an action or provided a service to others without any compulsion. This was an act based on one's own free will and motivated by the conviction that it was the right thing to do. 


I personally, would be reluctant to say that all volunteering has always been about altruism. Human motivation for volunteering and volunteering acts is rarely "pure" and is deeply linked to our values, culture and relationships. For example, we know there is a high correlation between religious faith (in all traditions) and volunteer involvement. However, I do strongly believe that volunteerism is about humans saying I want to do something to make a difference. Like Frank I do believe that people are thinking "that it was the right thing to do". I know from my own research and real experience that people who believe in the mission and cause are more passionate, stay longer and work harder than those who don't. 

Research from the Wisconsin longitudinal study published in September showed there was a direct correlation between volunteering for "the right reasons"and life span.  Those volunteers whose motivations were more focused on others lived longer than those who volunteered for their own reasons or who chose not to volunteer at all.

Having said that I have always opened up volunteering to anyone. I look for people who want to support the mission of the agency they are volunteering for. They can volunteer with me whatever their motivations and desires if there is a match with those desires and our opportunities.

Ferudi goes on to suggest that volunteering has been turned into an institution that is promoted on the grounds of its benefits for the volunteer and for the community" I actually do not see this as a bad thing. His major concern is that volunteering is being advocated  "not because it is something that is good in itself but because it "delivers a number of key social and economic benefits".

Here is where Ferudi really hooks me in. We have almost allowed volunteering to be captured and turned into an economic force for its own sake.  For example, I have noticed when I sit with young people, they talk about their desire to volunteer to help neighbours, strangers and the world. When I sit with legislators and volunteer managers, these people talk about young people wanting to volunteer simply for their resumes. That's a massive disconnect. Then we market volunteering in this way so it sounds like a job preparation program. We then force young people to "volunteer" through schools, universities and job programs and turn not for profit agencies into de facto job readiness providers.And then we wonder why young people don't volunteer. (Many of them are starting up their own not for profits and social enterprises instead)

I don't often see governments investing in campaigns where we talk about volunteering as part of the creation of social capital. The same with advertising by volunteer centers and community agencies. I see in fact a de emphasising of the community benefits of volunteering because everyone believes we live in a selfish society. Instead we focus on "what people are going to get out of it". Yet we are competing in the wrong way. Why fight selfishness by emphasising selfishness?

Volunteering is competing for people's leisure time. When I ask how will we compete for this time, the number one thing people mention in my workshops is we need to emphasise how much fun volunteering is. Sorry, I don't volunteer because its fun. No offence, I can think of  a million more fun things to do than wrapping Christmas parcels in 35 degree heat or fighting a fire or feeding the hungry at midnight. People do those things because they are wanting to make a real. They may have fun while doing them. Again, In the end I want to use my precious time to volunteer because I want to make a difference. Is that how we are marketing and constructing volunteering?

At the 1998 Australian National Volunteering Conference, a group of volunteer managers formed a small rebellion and convened a meeting to protest the bureaucratisation of volunteering. They feared that the spirit of volunteering would vanish with things like the then proposed  Australian National Standards for Volunteering. At the Australians Retreat for Advanced Volunteer Management, a few years ago, we asked the question "have we gone too far?" In other rewords in trying to protect the community, clients, volunteers and agencies, are we squeezing then lifeblood out of volunteering? 

Vern Hughes says yes.In an opinion post in The Melbourne (Australia) Age last February Hughes said: Non-profits lose sight of volunteer heritage. He has gone on to to start an organisation called Street by Street which says: Participants in a Street by Street link-up are not volunteers, they are people in a voluntary relationship with their neighbours, as neighbours. 

This organisation is tapping into what we are seeing anecdotally, a massive rise in people saying they want to volunteer but they do not want to participate in "structured volunteering" Also anecdotalyl are the stories of people losing interest because of 14 Page application forms, six week training courses and what feel like to be onerous long term "contracts" to volunteer. 

I think these are serious issues we need to confront:

1. We need to talk more about the social capital created through volunteering
2. We need to build an appreciation of volunteerism and altruism while opening up volunteering to anyone and not judging people's motives
3. we need to find ways to make it easier for people to volunteer while protecting people
4. we need to avoid the tinkering of volunteering that causes the spirit and reality of volunteering to be lost

Ferudi concludes by saying that "real volunteers are still doing the business. They are those unassuming and often anonymous individuals who don't possess paper qualifications as mentors or facilitators or animators. Let them thrive."  Writings by people such as Frank Ferudi challenges us to think about this volunteering industry and rediscover a  middle ground. 

Wednesday World Changers: Washing Your Hands- changing world

Guest blogger: Tony Feliciano  (pictured left), a member of Gen Y with a passion for the world

The peculiar thing about washing hands with soap is that, though your hands may be clean of debris and dirt, the chemicals in soap that absorb into your skin and wash away down the drain aren’t so “clean.” Sodium Lauryl Sulfonate, for example, is not biodegradable and can kill living organisms. Other materials, like fragrances and solubulizers included in soap formulations can pose health hazards. So, while you may be washing your hands and feeling clean on the outside, both the global environment and your internal health may be battling synthetic invaders. To determine potential health and environmental hazards a specific soap may have, visit http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ for a rating.

I set up Clean World Clean Hands (CWCH) to do three things:

1. produce soap that is biodegradable and safe for your skin 
2. bringing these soaps to third world countries, to areas, for example without proper water filtration, so that people's water sources and environment are not impacted negatively
3. through workshops, donations, and volunteer work give back to the community 

We aim to clean your hands - and the world’s hands.

Let me start with the soap. CWCH aims to produce a soap that is  "invisible". Our product has virtually no impact on the environment or your health and is sustainable, thereby making it "invisible". By using vegetable based glycerin, natural essential oils etc, our soap completely dissociates in water leaving no trace synthetic materials. 

The CWCH mission, therefore, is to create an invisible product that sparks visible change. More specifically, we create all natural biodegradable soap and as a cooperative we encourage invisible product design as well as distribute soap to those in need. 

CWCH cooperative is in its startup stage and any inquires should contact myself (tony@cleanworldcleanhands.com) Donations to support the work are appreciated and an incentives ladder exists for monetary donations. Check out: www.cleanworldcleanhands.com

Tuesday Tech: An average Facebook user

In their quest for cool infographics, the people at mashable.com have produced a really cool info graphic of an average Facebook user. Check it out at: http://mashable.com/2011/11/18/facebook-stats/

Image is below:


A few interesting things. The average user has 229 Facebook friends:

•  22% of those friends are from high school,
•  12% are co-workers
•  9% are from college 

3% of people'  who are  friends on Facebook have  only met once. The average user has never met 7% of their friends on Facebook. So 10% total belong in the rarely connected category.

For nor fot profits, what is interesting is that 7% of friends have been met through voluntary groups.

In 2008, the average user is 38 years old. Two years ago, it was 33 indicating that the number of "older" people on Facebook has been growing fast. Further, the median age of the planet is 28.4 years of age. In the USA the median age is 36.8. This indicates Facebook population is actually skewed toward an older demographic than the general population. Thats fascinating. So much for a "young person's tool". (Australia's median age is 37.5 years so Australia and Facebook's populations are closely aligned!)

56% of users update their status weekly and only 18% daily.

Monday Motivation: what a terrific message

Wednesday World Changers: Australian Volunteers International

Happy 60th birthday Australian Volunteers International (AVI) - a great presentation from Dimity Fifer #VolAus11 http://t.co/92TiCby0

Monday Motivation: International Volunteers Day

Unselfish and noble actions are the most radiant pages in the biography of souls.  ~David Thomas

Power to Change?

Thank you to Rob Jackson from the United Kingdom for contributing today's blog post for International Volunteers Day.

Each year, the 5^th December is the United Nations International Volunteers Day. Actually, to give it it’s full title it is UN International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development.

Some, like my friend and colleague Jayne Cravens, find this distinction from other forms of volunteering important whilst others use the day as an opportunity to celebrate all volunteering. As Jayne’s blog suggests (follow the link above to read it) it all depends on how you interpret the name of ‘the day’.

This year ‘the day’ falls at the end of the UN’s celebration of ten years since the International Year of Volunteers (IYV+10) and at the end of the European Year of Volunteering 2011 (EYV11). Both of these international years have been opportunities to celebrate the work of volunteers, to understand volunteering a little bit more and to promote its importance to society, whether nationally or internationally.

Back in 2005 the UK also had its own Year of the Volunteer. The announcement in 2004’s budget speech by then Chancellor (and later Prime Minister) Gordon Brown MP came as a total surprise to his officials and fellow MPs and Ministers but it gave yet another chance to showcase volunteering. Perhaps that’s why the year had little impact on volunteering.

In the UK levels of formal volunteering (that is volunteering done with/through an organisation) have, according to government figures, remained pretty constant for the last decade. We entered 2011 with about the same number of people doing formal volunteering as ten years ago, despite millions of pounds of investment by government.

More recently interest in volunteering shot up, mostly as a result of the financial crisis, but the numbers of people actually doing formal volunteering haven’t changed. That suggests to me that there is a mismatch between what people want from volunteering and what many organisations offer volunteers.

In the same ten year period, recent data from NCVO and Skills Third Sector shows that the number of paid staff in the voluntary and community sector in England rose by 40%. That’s a staggering amount of growth, not only in numbers of staff but cost to the donor. Personally I think it implies a worrying disregard by many organisations for volunteering as a way to effect social and economic change.

So if recent data implies that all these international days and years aren’t effecting much significant change, where can we look for the power of volunteering?

As well as IYV+10 and EYV11, this year’s UN volunteer day falls at the end of a year in which I think we’ve seen more change globally than in any year since the Berlin Wall came down. We’ve had the Arab spring and Occupy Wall St (and other places) protests, to mention just two high profile examples. Both of these, and many others too, have been powered by volunteers, people “doing more than they have to - because they want to - in a cause they consider good” (to quote the late great Ivan Scheier).

Such revolutionary endeavour to effect change invariably starts with volunteers. It starts with people who are passionate about a cause and have a strong desire to see things change. It doesn’t start with paid staff, with a requirement for funding before we take action or as a result of government support.

So on this year’s UN International Volunteer Day, whether you want to focus on volunteering for economic and social development or on some other form of volunteering, the important thing is that we celebrate and promote volunteering. Volunteering that has the power to change the world.

God knows we need some change for the better.

Wednesday World Changers: International Children's Peace Prize

Five children out of 98 children from 42 countries were nominated for the  International Children's Peace Prize 2011.

The winner was  Michaela Mycroft (17) from South Africa. Michaela was born with Cerebral Palsy, which limits her leg and arm functions.

Eight years ago, with the help of her sister and three friends, Mycroft decided to sell cards and flower pots to raise money for a motorised wheelchair. They raised ZAR20 000 in seven weeks.

Because of the success of this project, “Chaeli” as she is known, felt the need to help other children.

Her organisation ‘Chaeli Campaign’ now employs 20 people and assists more than 3 000 disabled South African children every year by providing special equipment.

The other 2011 nominees were:

Liza (17) from Palestine who uses sport to build peace between Israeli and Palestinian youth with a Peace Sport Schools program. In addition, she started a girls football team, introducing women’s football to the Palestinian society.

Malala (13) from Pakistan who dared to stand up for herself and other girls using international media to let the world know girls should also have the right to go to school when it was banned by the Taliban.  "To me education is the only tool that makes a man civilized, a good citizen and help develop the Pakhtun society," she said






Nikolay (17) from Armenia who blogs about human rights and democracy via a website and blog. He aims to inspire other children to spread support for human rights and democracy in Armenia.









Winfred (14) from Uganda monitors the inciences of child abuse and neglect and documents cases of violence against children. Sge established  Kamuli Children’s Counselling Club, where children receive counselling on various challenges they are facing. Winfred also set up a Tree Planting Club to plant more trees and create a green environment for the school. She also set up a Children’s Court which settles disputes amongst children without interference of adults.


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Volunteer Australia Conference Reportback

400 people attended the Volunteering Australia conference on the Gold Coast. The number was down from their original 600 target. Whether the numbers were down because of the high cost, change of date and venue, the recession or the program we will never know.

We do know that about 1000 people read my blog post on the high cost of the Conference and not one person disagreed with my comments. Volunteering Australia sadly ignored the blog post which is I would suggest a poor response to such a large group of their constituents and poor social media strategy.

We do know that Conference keynote speaker Michael Kirby was his usual brilliant self and that The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP launched  the long awaited national volunteer strategy for Australia. I will comment on the strategy next week.

 We also know that the hashtag #VolAus11 has over 800 twitter comments from over 130 participants. They included:

RT @neridagill: RT @creativewire: Recruiting volunteers is not about 'asking for a favour', it's about giving yr volunteers something meaningful #volaus11


Congrats to Cary and the team at Volunteering Australia on a very successful and beneficial conference. You should be very proud! #volaus11


RT @CreativeWire: The not-for-profit market is 7 times larger than the mining sector in Australia #volaus11


Awesome->RT @ProBonoNews: 'Many of the leaders in volunteering are corporate groups' says Vol Aust of their research #volaus11


Conference attendees,  my readers and I would love your feedback. Please leave some comments. You can be anonymous or open.