In the wake of the International Volunteer Day (IVD), celebrated worldwide on December 5th, the volunteers of the World Humanitarian Summit came together to tell the world how they are engaged in shaping a new humanitarian agenda for the future. Ameer Qureshi, Laura Isidean, Badrul Bilal, Aleksandrina Mavrodieva and Maureen Murray are some of the many individuals who volunteer their time, energy and skills to support the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit. Whether through their role as digital advocates, or supporting the online consultations and the data visualization challenges, they have stood up and answered one fundamental question: how can I, as an individual, contribute to a world, where humanity is more than just a word?
This blog collects their experience, passion and perspective as WHS volunteers, in the hope to inspire many more to join us!
Q: The United Nations defines volunteerism as “benefiting both society at large and the individual volunteer by strengthening trust, solidarity and reciprocity among citizens, and by purposefully creating opportunities for participation”. Concretely, what does volunteerism mean to you?
Laura: Volunteerism means giving back. Throughout my life, I have been fortunate to have access to rewarding education and career opportunities, in a safe and secure environment. I recognize that many are not so fortunate, and feel it is my duty to contribute towards the empowerment of those who are most vulnerable – because we all deserve a chance at leading a life filled with opportunity.
Ameer: Volunteerism is magical way to play your part by being present or not at the situation. It’s the best way to serve mankind just by giving little amount of your time, and it’s changing lives, cultures, societies and specially the life of the volunteer.
Q: Every year on December 5th, the United Nations celebrates the International Volunteer Day, highlighting the contributions made by all volunteers to global development. How do you see volunteerism going forward? How will volunteerism look like in 10 or 15 years?
Aleksandrina: Unfortunately, our would is becoming increasingly insecure, people are facing more and more challenges with complex nature, which cannot be solved quickly or easily. More and more hands will be needed in the future to aid those in need. My opinion is that one of the main purposes of volunteerism in the future should be to create and teach empathy and understanding in people towards each other. I think the role of volunteers will grow in the future, which might require the development of new frameworks.
Badrul: Over the next 10-15 years, with the advent of more fascinating technology including internet of things, cheaper internet services and smartphones, I expect the online volunteering platform to pick up to even greater levels. The world of volunteers will be much more connected, where by sharing of ideas and opportunities will be much more efficient with immediate replication of successful ventures and elimination of duplicity of work across the globe. On the other hand, I expect exponential growth in the corporate volunteerism and volunteer tourism segments as more and more people mix work and leisure with volunteering activities. For instance, many of us want to go trekking on the Mount Kilimanjaro range in Tanzania. But why not club this with a volunteering activity which could be equally as fun and engaging as the trek itself? These are the sort of opportunities that UN Volunteers and other global volunteering organizations should leverage to help engage even more volunteers into this social initiative.
Q: The World Humanitarian Summit is the first-ever humanitarian event of its kind. What inspired you to become a WHS volunteer?
Maureen: My experiences as a volunteer in hurricane relief efforts during the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in the Northeastern United States awakened me to the realities of the global impacts of climate change and displacement, as well as the importance of localized humanitarian aid.
Badrul: Growing up in a village in the 1980s in India, I have first-hand witnessed many of the calamities that people in the third world countries face. And when I read about the WHS initiative, I was determined to make any contribution that was necessary to help make this summit a success. That’s when I saw an opportunity posted on the UN Online Volunteers website. Needless to say, I applied immediately.
Aleksandrina: I was interested in the opportunity to gain more and first-hand knowledge on topics which were very close to me. The personal stories of the participants made this experience even more valuable and unique. Another idea which drew me into the process was to collect good practices and try to scale them up so that others can benefit. For me this is an important step in improving humanitarian action in an honest and open way, as problems should be addressed, and am hoping that those good practices will be taken into account by policy-makers.
Q: In your respective roles, what were the most challenging and the most rewarding parts of your assignment?
Laura: As a Digital Advocate, the most challenging part of my role was connecting with the right national organizations and humanitarians that could offer meaningful input to the consultation process, given their dispersed location in areas of conflict or distress. The most rewarding part was working with a dedicated global team of volunteers, all united in one purpose, to improve humanitarian effectiveness.
Ameer: [In the World Humanitarian Summit’s various regional online consultations], there were thousands’ of people opinions, comments, ideas and all were in different languages. To compile them by taking them from different web platforms and making them useful was amazing. It was like taking the raw data and making it meaningful.
Badrul: [While helping with the WHS Data Visualization challenge], the most challenging role was the vast amounts of data that I worked with. Coupled with it was a rigid electronic data management system(EDMS) which meant that extracting data out of that system was a tedious time consuming manual process. However, due to my background in IT, I was able to suggest some improvements to the EDMS system and I was also able to write some scripts to automate cleansing of the data once it was extracted. The reward, of course, was to see that the data was extracted in the right format and was used as the basis for #Visualizechange challenge.
Q: If you could send a message to the participants of the WHS, whether representatives of governments, private sector, civil society or affected communities, what would you like to tell them?
Maureen: With reported connections between climate change and mass migration, and a consequential increased strain on the humanitarian aid system anticipated, meeting the World Humanitarian Summit’s objective to keep humanitarian aid “fit for the future” is a global problem that must be solved collectively. It’s important to learn about your government’s participation in the World Humanitarian Summit—and how it will help to shape the agenda and commit to the recommendations.
Laura: At a time when humanitarian needs are unprecedented, the status quo is not acceptable – please use this valuable opportunity to actively listen to those who are most vulnerable, and importantly ACT accordingly, so that no one is left behind in this global effort to improve humanitarian action.
Badrul: One message I would send is the need to have the principles of volunteerism and other noble causes built into the curriculum at schools. It may be part of the education system in certain countries. However it definitely is not part the curriculum in majority of the developing or under developed countries. If we are successful in making this a mandatory requirement for students of certain grades and above, we would be creating an army of volunteers for tomorrow which would ultimately help us rid of many of the problems we face today.
HAVE YOU BEEN INSPIRED BY THEIR STORIES? DO YOU WANT TO JOIN THE WORLD HUMANITARIAN SUMMIT AS AN ONLINE VOLUNTEER?
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