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A helping hand of equals
Mail & Guardian (SA)
March 30, 2007

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=303406&area=/insight/insight__national/

"When Mother Theresa said 'in this life we cannot do great things, we can only do small things with great love', I knew she was speaking directly to us and the work that we do," says Cornelius Ramela, a dedicated worker at Ikageng Itereleng Aids Ministry in Soweto.

Ramela is one of a growing number of Africans who invest their time and energy in volunteering or civic service.

The increased interest in the area has been highlighted by the findings of a cross-national qualitative study exploring volunteering or civic service patterns -- the first of its kind -- conducted in five Southern African countries (Botswana, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe).

"This study was a simple exploration of the patterns of volunteering on the continent -- we are simply giving directions for further research," says Helene Perold, executive director of Volunteer and Service Enquiry Southern Africa. The five countries were chosen because each has visible volunteering activity.

The report, Research Partnerships Build the Service Field in Africa: Special Issue on Civic Service in the Southern African Development Community, states that volunteering in Africa has deep historical and cultural roots, with pre-colonial African societies relying on mutual aid, kinship and community support to meet human needs.

"We explored civic service -- including voluntary work -- across five Southern African states, and we were struck by how strongly rooted this kind of service is and the enormous potential it holds for social development in the SADC," says Professor Leila Patel, director of the Centre for Social Development in Africa at the University of Johannesburg.

"The pattern we found was quite different from social service in industrialised countries, where those who provide service are generally more affluent than the beneficiaries. In Africa, where poverty is so prevalent, civic service is largely the domain and the achievement of the poor. It is the extension of a helping hand between equals," adds Patel.

Thousands of South African volunteers have saved lives by giving of their time to be part of informal and formal civic service organisations. "There are many small informal organisations throughout the region and government should be providing more financial support," says Perold.

Youth volunteers work daily on various tasks such as home-based care for HIV/Aids patients, administering life-saving TB drugs in their communities, taking care of homeless and destitute children, providing physiotherapy for those living with disabilities and counselling survivors of rape and domestic violence.

"I have been volunteering for more than a year now and I do it because I was an orphan and my community raised me so I have first-hand experience," says 21-year-old Bongani Naholo, who volunteers at Carryou Home-Based Care. The study shows that unemployed youth volunteers are motivated by the opportunity to develop skills and to gain work experience in the hopes of obtaining gainful employment.

"Traditionally volunteering was seen as an individual activity which enables people to participate in society. Now it is growing as a movement and government can use volunteers' energies to work towards a national agenda," says Perold. Civic service has great potential for social development as it reduces marginalisation and exclusion, especially among the youth and the poor.

"With so much human capital in this field it presents an opportunity for government and development agencies to place more emphasis on developing a policy that will promote equitable social and economic development and active citizenship," adds Perold.

The report emphasises the need for a "strong policy" that should produce positive effects and provide exceptional return on investment made by the volunteers.

Perold adds that sound civic policies are the ideal catalyst for a productive working relationship between government and civil society and should consider that volunteering embodies the full African spirit of Ubuntu.

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