Tihomir Žiljak
Participation in society is needed to both individuals and society. Isolated and excluded people do not fulfil their basic human needs and opportunities. Without the participation of individuals, meaningful common goals in society cannot be designed and realized, and it becomes impossible to balance the interests and define basic common values. A society in which some social groups are excluded lacks its constituent parts.
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On Social Circumstances Of Volunteering And Older Volunteers (Part 1)
Dušana Findeisen, Slovenian Third Age University, National Association for Education and Social Inclusion
Summary: The author deals with the conceptualisation of volunteering, less from the point of view of active citizenship than from the point of view of social circumstances stimulating or hindering volunteering. The author argues that volunteering is characterised mostly by its leisure time nature and therefore can not be conceptualised as non- paid work. Occasionally, volunteering can turn into a leisure time professional career. Conceptualising volunteering as non- paid work is not welcome. Any type volunteering comprises two motives which appear in pair: altruism and one’s own interest. Volunteers volunteer for a number of reasons and a volunteering organisation has to identify these reasons and harmonize them with its own reasons and needs. Volunteers can be managed form the point of view of the fields of activity of an organisation or from the point of view of the volunteers’ motives and competencies.
Key words: volunteering, leisure time, society, altruism, non- paid work, motives, leisure time career, voluntary organisation, serious volunteering, accidental volunteering, project volunteering.
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