[CivilSoc] Creating Social Capital through Volunteer Actions

[Civil Society International]

From: "Al Decie" <agdecie@hotmail.com>
Subject: Creating Social Capital through Volunteer Actions
Puppet Shows, Clean-Ups, Soccer Games and Civil Society Development in
Armenia: Creating Social Capital through Volunteer Actions
...Armen and Haik, with damp rags in hand, climbed a 7-meter tall bronze
statue located in one of the central squares of Sevan. These two young
teenage boys started to wipe off the chalk marks and bird droppings from
this silent commemorator of the Civil War victims from the early 1920s.  The
youngsters had stickers on their shirts with the slogan - "Good Will, Good
Deeds, Good Results - Let's Do Some Good!"...
Days of Good Will, Good Deeds and Good Results was a volunteer action
organized by IFES/Armenia from October 5th through October 7th in Yerevan
and Aragatsotn, Armavir, Gegharkunik, Kotayk, Lori, and Shirak marzes.  More
than 580 organizations and individuals conducted 700+ events, which included
63,000+ participants.
Our objectives for this action were:
* To heighten attention about volunteerism and NGOs as useful ways of
bringing communities together and solving local problems
* To further develop social capital in the regions in which we work so as to
strengthen the foundation for further civic engagement in other forms
* To expand bases and connections of IFES instructors in the regions
So as to make the action as accessible to as wide a range of people as
possible and so as to attract a wide range of participation, the action was
presented as a three-day celebration of all that is good in the country.
Anyone could join in this celebration.  Any good deed during these three
days could be included in this celebration.
To attract more attention and involvement, the action was connected to the
UN's International Year of Volunteers (IYV).  For our action, the UN
provided various IYV materials, helped spread the word about the action, and
spoke at our main press conference and closing ceremony.  The local UN
office said that Days of Good Will, Good Deeds and Good Results was the
largest action connected to IYV 2001 so far in Armenia.
Events during the action.
The 580+ organizations and individuals involved in conducting the events
were varied.  There were local NGOs, city and regional governments, small
businesses, schools and universities, libraries, museums, sports clubs,
condominiums, and international organizations (UMCOR, World Learning, Red
Cross, Junior Achievement, Peace Corps, USDA, CEP) as well as individuals
and groups of individuals.  With IFES, the chapters of its local partner,
the Women's Republican Council (WRC), were active in the organizing and
conducting of the action in each of the regions.
The action also reached other non-target regions of Armenia with Siunik and
Tavoush WRC chapters doing small-scale events.  In Vayots Dzor, the WRC
chapter and World Learning formed an organizing committee and conducted a
series of events.
To give an air of festivity and to help participants to decide how to
participate, each day of the action was given a certain theme:
* Friday, October 5th:  Day of Culture and Education.  To emphasize the
value of culture and education in our community; to commend our cultural and
education institutions and their workers; to open the doors of our cultural
and education institutions to all residents.
* Saturday, October 6th:  Day of Open Hearts.  Assistance to those in our
community who need our help and support.
* Sunday, October 7th:  Our Community Is Our Home.  Uniting of local
residents, local government authorities, commercial and non-commercial
organizations, education institutions, and the mass media to solve local
problems.
Also for each day, a variety of possible events were suggested in the
initial announcement about the action.
The 700+ events fell into the following categories:
* Free services (dentists, shoe repairmen, hairdressers, sports trainers,
access to the Internet, apartment/building repairs by condominiums, etc.)
* Clean-ups of territories (school territories, court yards, monuments,
river bank, lake shore)
* Donations of various goods/materials
* Open doors at museums
* Sports events
* Visits to orphanages, nursing homes and elderly shut-ins
* Meetings with state officials, local artists, authors and other local
famous people
* Various cultural events (concerts, puppet shows, exhibits of local
artists, chalk drawings on the street, storytelling to children, etc.)
* Community improvement initiatives (repairing flats of the elderly,
installing a common water pump for a small neighborhood, asphalting a road)
As we wanted a large number and wide range of people, we encouraged the
conducting of events, with which people were familiar.  To further local
ownership, only events that could be done with local resources--either their
own resources or those that they could find in their community--were
encouraged.
There were various motivations for why people conducted events during this
action.  Some wanted to expand the scope of their everyday "good deeds".
For example, many which provide free services or free access to their
institutions on a limited basis made their services completely free during
the action and opened their institutions to all for every day of the action.
Or in the instances of schools, many expanded their "good deeds" to those
beyond their school grounds to include children and adults living around the
school (e.g., cartoons for neighborhood kids or sports events for the
community or clean-ups of areas outside the schoolyard).
For others, the action gave them an impetus to do activities, which they
planned to do, but hadn't gotten around to doing.  For example, the city
library of Sevan organized a meeting and book reading with a local
historian.  Such an event had never been conducted before but the library
had always planned to do such a thing.  When they heard about the action,
they decided the time was right to try such an event.  And it was a great
success.
For others, the action was an opportunity to try volunteerism and to do
something new.  A group of friends (young men) in Paraqar (Armavir), for
example, when they heard about the action decided that they should do
something "good" and fixed various things in the flats of elderly in their
village.
IFES intern-alumni played an important role in the action.  As they continue
to look for ways to be active after their summer internships, our former
interns assisted with the action in all of our regions.  Many assisted our
instructors and the regional organizing committees with tasks connected to
the coordinating of the action in the regions.  Other intern-alumni
conducted their own actions with their friends and promoted the action to
other youth and helped them to conduct an event or two.
Regional Organizing Committees
Each region had its own organizing committee.  90+ organizations were
involved in coordinating this action.  Organizing committees included local
& international NGOs, government departments, mass media, schools and
cultural institutions.  WRC representatives and IFES instructors also sat on
each of the organizing committees.
IFES staff and instructors helped the organizing committees to develop work
plans, to prioritize activities, and to assign responsibility for work plan
activities.  All organizing committee members also conducted their own
events.
As with all of our activities, our aim with this action was to start to
develop within the community itself the commitment, capacity and control to
realize this action.  Through organizing committees, we were attempting to
get local partners vested in the action and to give them the confidence,
credibility, and competence to do this action and possible future actions.
We presented IFES as one among many, included the organizing committees in
all local implementation of decisions and actions, and cited and involved
organizing committee members when presenting the action.
IFES' role in the action.
IFES, with WRC's participation, was the originator of the idea of the
action, its name, logo, daily themes and possible events.  Discussion about
an inter-regional volunteer action started after the instructors' June
training where volunteerism was covered and the idea was developed after the
instructors, with their WRC counterparts, tried some small-scale volunteer
activities.
IFES' role was not to conduct individual events.  Our role was that of
catalyst, coordinator and information clearing house.  Activation of and
support to the regional organizing committees is one role that IFES played.
Also, IFES provided the pins, stickers, certificates, and needed templates
of documents as well as advice on what the organizing committees needed to
address and how they should work.  Our field offices used some of their
monthly budgets to cover basic administrative costs and their equipment was
at the disposal of the organizing committees.  We generated the media
coverage for the overall action (though local organizing committees worked
with local media).  We also monitored and documented the progress of the
action.  Whenever such a large-scale multi-regional action takes place it is
crucial to have an organization playing the role that IFES did in Days of
Good Will, Good Deeds and Good Results.
Future steps.
IFES plans to do a booklet, which would document the action and contain
practical information on conducting such volunteer actions and templates of
various documents, which we developed.
IFES instructors will continue to include volunteerism as one of the basic
themes of their work.  Discussion groups and seminars will continue to be
conducted and small local volunteer actions will continue to be encouraged.
We are establishing a yearly calendar of regular large-scale volunteer
initiatives--e.g., in the spring, a multi-region multi-day action, in early
October Days of Good Will, Good Deeds and Good Results, and on December 5th,
International Volunteers' Day.  With this calendar, we'll regularly inject
large bursts of social capital into the communities where we work and lay
the foundation for other civic initiatives.
Conclusion
This action took much effort as we not only had to conduct the event but
devise it, explain it to the instructors and then their communities, and
then involve others and assist them in the development and implementation of
the action.  As this action was also a learning experience for local
communities, some expected events (around 3%) did not occur and many had at
the last moment their day and/or time changed.  However as the event has
been established, materials developed and our instructors and local
participating organizations know what is expected of them, the next Days of
Good Will, Good Deeds and Good Results and future actions will be easier to
implement.
Days of Good Will, Good Deeds and Good Results has shown itself to be an
effective way of focusing energy and attention on local environments and
initiatives to improve local communities.  It proved to be a good way to
further develop social capital in the regions in which we work so as to
strengthen the foundation for further forms of civic engagement.
Armenia has the foundation for a wider more vibrant volunteer movement.
Several main predictors for volunteering exist in Armenia:  a high level of
education, a high percentage of not fully employed people, and a strong
history of volunteering and altruism from childhood (contrary to a popular
view, the level of material wealth is not the main predictor for
volunteering and altruism).  When you incorporate into your volunteer
actions the basic tenets of community development and make the actions
accessible to all, volunteerism becomes a powerful tool for grassroots civil
society development.
Armenia also has the need for a more vibrant volunteer movement and social
capital building initiatives.  In a nationwide survey conducted in 2000, 64%
of the respondents said local self-government is not interested in and does
not pay attention to what people think and 83% said that they had not worked
with friends and neighbours on a common problem over the last year.  At the
same time however, 52% said that they are ready to be more active if
authorities would be more willing to involve them.  Ties that have bound
people together have deteriorated but there is a yearning for their revival.
Social capital building is key for encouraging a more active citizenry.
So in their menu of various services promoting community development,
volunteerism and volunteer actions will continue to be an important tool for
IFES regional instructors.
This article was prepared by Al Decie, Aghassi Yessayan, and Shushanik
Makaryan--IFES/Armenia
October 2001
Al Decie
Chief Trainer
IFES/Armenia
Alek Manukian 9
Yerevan  375070
Republic of Armenia
Tel.:  3741-51-20-51, 51-20-16
Cell: 3749-42-31-49
Fax:  3741-51-20-15
E-mail:  AGDecie@ifes.am, AGDecie@hotmail.com