Meet the volunteers. Education, Networking, Inspiration
The 2nd Pomeranian Volunteer Forum organized by the Gdańsk Regional Volunteer Center and the City of Gdańsk took place on Friday, December 2, 2022. The Pomeranian Volunteer Forum is an educational, networking and inspirational cross-sector meeting on volunteering, organized in the special year 2022, when Gdańsk is the European Capital of Volunteering.
Take a historic tram for Gdańsk Volunteer Week. Everyone could benefit from it
– It is good to use volunteerism and to support it – said Hanna Zych Cisoń, vice-president of the regional assembly of the province. Pomorskie at the opening of the Forum. – You don’t need to convince anyone to volunteer. When I was a health marshal, I started volunteering in hospitals in Pomerania. We started with 65 people. Before the pandemic, there were already a thousand! Certainly, the times of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have shown all of us what enormous layers of good deeds lie dormant in people, how many people who did not volunteer went to help. The greatest satisfaction in life is not money, but what we do in social activities stays with us. I wish the volunteers abnegation. Go forward!
President Chabior: Change the world as you want it to be
The Gdańsk Regional Volunteering Center and its partners have once again created a meeting space for practitioners and supporters of volunteering. Such a meeting is an exchange of good volunteering practices, but also a discussion on the axes of development of this branch of the non-governmental sector.
– When I started working as a volunteer at Amnesty International, I entered a structure based on ideas, but also by actively thinking about how to act – remembers Monika Chabior. – This action helped me to find my own identity, but also to learn a trade, to observe how people act. Recently, on behalf of the people of Gdańsk, I received an award for developing friendly standards for LGBT people. With Jacek Jesionek of Tolerado, a volunteer who engages with LGBT people, but also changes the system. With us, he studied the functioning of municipal institutions and the way in which they offer their services to this particular group.
President Chabior underlined that volunteering is a tool, a watchdog placed in society, through which we can find out what the social needs are, what works and what does not.
– I encourage you to think about what we can do better and to demand a space where your knowledge can manifest and be transmitted – said President Chabior. – Because we are united by the fact that we want to live in a better world. Thank you for being involved, for wanting to listen. Make the world what you want it to be.
Euro 2012 is a watershed moment for volunteering
The Pomeranian Volunteer Forum was established with the aim of supporting Pomeranians, volunteers, non-governmental organizations and the volunteering environment in volunteering activities.
ECS and UG signed a cooperation agreement. They will win eg. students and residents
– The first volunteer agency in Gdańsk several years ago was a cork board with suggestions what you can get involved in, and on the other board there were profiles of volunteers – remembers Agnieszka Buczyńska , former president of the Gdańsk Regional Volunteer Center . – It was also at this time that we created the first internet portal for volunteering, this did not exist in the country. Euro 2012 was a watershed moment. Gdańsk took advantage of this moment, funds and a wave of energy appeared. Then we rode that wave with small but determined steps and grew. For me, the most important thing is that I have always succeeded in convincing the local authorities that volunteering is important. We have been heard.
Magdalena Skiba: It all started with non-governmental organizations
Magda Skiba, who was, among other things, Head of the Department of Local Cooperation and Social Innovation at the Gdańsk City Hall and for 17 years she cooperated with non-governmental organizations, pointed out that the city has initially focused on non-governmental organizations.
– Mayor Adamowicz had a vision for the city and its infrastructural and social development, in which non-governmental organizations performed important functions – explained Magdalena Skiba. – Thanks to this, we began to build a strong non-governmental sector in Gdańsk, which began to take over the provision of services in the city. At the time, they were people with a mission, with the will to change the world, activists by definition, conscious leaders. Together, we started to build volunteering and Euro 2012 contributed to its development. We already had a Volunteer Center, we knew what it was about, we knew how to exploit its potential. Thanks to this, we in Gdańsk took a seven-year leap forward in various areas of life, including social ones.
Gdańsk Volunteer Week starts on Thursday – join the people of Gdańsk who are helping. PROGRAM
2nd Pomeranian Volunteer Forum. Debates, sessions, workshops
The program of the Forum included a debate, a session of good practices in which experiences of Pomeranian volunteering were presented, opinions and inspirations could be shared. The organizers also prepared a series of practical workshops, which were used to strengthen the competence potential of Pomeranian volunteers, facilitators and volunteer coordinators. How do you take care of yourself while helping others? How to build your own resources based on voluntary activity. How to organize good volunteering in the city and in the countryside? There will also be space for meetings, conversations, exchange of experiences and integration.