Tartu Volunteer Center

1

• Tartu Volunteer Center
• Tuulike Mänd
• Member of the board
• tuulike_at_vabatahtlikud.ee

2

• Volunteering is a fundamental building block of
  civil society
• IAVE Universal Declaration on Volunteering
• Organized volunteering is underdeveloped in
  Estonia.
• In spite of abovesaid, volunteering happens in
  Estonia.

3

• The initiative to promote and support
  volunteering comes mainly from nonprofit
  organizations.
• The situation is relatively good with the law
  making process.
• In the light of all this it is understandable,
  that the knowledge about the principles of
  volunteer work is low in Estonia.
• As with many things, it is more easy and useful
  to teach new things and attitudes to young people.

4
The results of the study

• In general, the teachers defined the term
  volunteer work the same way as TVC does. While
  talking about volunteer work, the teachers named
  following characteristics person's free will,
  unpaid work, unselfishness, mission and solving
  the problems which the society faces.
• 8 teachers of civic education out of 10 discussed
  more or less the topic of volunteering in their
  lessons. 75 of them find, that this topic should
  be given more attention.

5
The results of the study

• Today the main obstacles are (1) too little time
  can be devoted to this topic according to the
  curricula, (2) the lack of materials and
  information and (3) teacher's small knowledge
  about the topic.
• The possibilities to practice volunteer work in
  schools are poor, but teachers believe, that
  practical work can compensate too small attention
  given to the topic in lessons. At the same time
  the practice of volunteer work should not be
  obligatory to the students.

6
The results of the study

• 7 teachers said, that voluntary actions have not
  taken place in their schools. There we can see
  the problem with understanding if students
  organize events or parties in school, it is not
  considered to be volunteer work.
• 9 teachers said, that volunteer work can provide
  possibilities to organize the free time of less
  active students.

7
The results of the study

• No teachers have had cooperation with
  organizations, which deal with volunteers. 2/3 of
  them would like to have such cooperation in the
  form of meetings, briefings and dissemination of
  materials.
• 9 teachers would like to receive more information
  about volunteering in the future. Most preferred
  are materials, Internet and briefings.