Voluntary youth in Spain

Breaking stereotypes

Millions of young people work to ensure that everybody enjoys a decent life all over the world. Most of them opt for international volunteering. They go abroad and give their support in a foreign country. It is the other part of youth


By ISABEL BENITEZ (isabel.benitez@wavemagazine.net)
from Sevilla, SPAIN


Just to help people, people who really need it; just to change a little part of the world. That is the answer you get if you ask 'why'.

Laura María Guerrero is 24 years old. She is a volunteer. She has decided to stop her professional career as a journalist in order to involve in a social programme. She is just one of the thousand of Spaniards who invest their time to support those in need; one of the hundreds of people who sacrifice themselves for each other. They have no name, they are unknown, they are invisible… but they are central in building a cohesive and inclusive society based on solidarity and active citizenship.

Most of them go abroad. They leave their country, their family and their friends to help poorest communities. They look for social inclusion, fight to guarantee human rights, become temporal teachers and occasional nurses, and bring optimism where hopelessness reigns.

- I always wanted to do it. I was looking for it and... it suddenly found me - Laura Maria stated. She has been to Palestine twice in her life and she would like to go back to the Arabian country. She tells her own story: "My volunteer contribution started in a national Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), called Peace Now, through ICAHD (Israelienne Committee Against House Demolitions). Their task is re-building houses for Palestine population in occupied territory. I got excited".

Next year, she enjoyed a grant at University. Educative community is perceived as a key actor in the promotion of volunteering. So many Spanish universities promote volunteering among their students through courses, sensitisations activities and research.

- I really wanted to go back to Palestine to continue helping Palestine community. The grant consisted in going all over the country interviewing authorities and studying politics with the Youth Development association.

As Laura Maria, they are lots of youngsters in the whole country who get engaged in civic activities. Although it is difficult to find rigorous and updated statistics on voluntary work (social organisations have many problems to get their own participant's registers), the Spanish Volunteer Association reports that 10 per cent of young population joined a social organisation in 2006; 20 per cent did it, at least, one in their life. In fact, the phenomenon is increasing because of the international economical crisis. FUNDAR, the Solidarity and Volunteer Foundation, affirmed that it achieves four new volunteers a day since the beginning of 2009.

Comparing with the four last decades, the number of volunteers has been extraordinary increased. Social and political conditions marked the country and the activity of the non-for-profit organisations. It was not until the establishment of a democratic regime that volunteering could really come into sight. Now it is weaker than in other countries in Western Europe, but it is rising.

Why volunteers

Volunteering offers lots of opportunities to young people, anyway. Social activism has several branches: environment and global warming, human rights, assistance to handicapped and elderly population, poverty and conflicts, peace culture, and development and international cooperation. International assignments are becoming specifically more and more popular. The Spanish Coordinating Committee of Sustainable Development NGOs (CEONGD) assures that 25.000 Spanish volunteers engage in international aid every year. Higinio Almagro, director of the Andalusian Volunteer Agency, believes that youngsters accustomed to be enthusiastic.

- International volunteering is an attractive offer. Young people are not afraid of travelling or meeting new communities. And it provides them new experiences for their lives.

In Spain, the most popular international destination is Latin America. Joly Navarro explains that it may be because of the language. "Most of the countries in South America speak Spanish, so it is easier for volunteers". She was a volunteer and now she is the responsible for Volunteering of Intered, a Development NGO to promote solidarity between people and cultures. Their field of work is fight against injustice, misery and exclusion. Their tasks contribute to positive change in Asia, Africa and America. Joly knew of Intered through a supportive project in Cochabamba, in Bolivia: an alternative education school. There she tried to value and make the most of native culture. "It worked and works with youngsters, adults and, of course, women. Many volunteers' profiles can go there and help".

Laura Plasencia collaborates with the same non-for-profit organisation. She is from Santa Cruz de Tenerife, but she spent this summer in Mexico, in Guadanajuato, working in Victoria Diez's Human Right Centre. The Centre focuses its work on women, through a legal consultancy, educational services, and social, economical, cultural and environmental rights. She is twenty-year-old. She is studying a degree on law and political science, and it has been her first time as a volunteer, though she desires to go on contributing.

They all represent three separated stories with something in common. These volunteers match the 'volunteer profile' in Spain: a young woman (around 25-year-old), with a higher education and high-media purchasing power. They often study or work, what proves that "who really wants to help people in need obtains time to do it", Gabriel Alconchel, the director of the Spanish Institute of Youth, remembers. "It seems contradictory but who most help is busy people, very active youngsters who have no free time".

Learning from experience

The crucial requirement it is willingness to be involved in civic movements. Laura Maria's motivation was becoming familiar with a place in permanent conflict.

- Apart from that, I have been studying Israelie - Palestinian situation and I realized that it doesn't receive enough international aids. It is necessary they understand they are not alone. Building a house means that a Palestinian family (stripped off its dignity) gets a home. It is gratifying.

The desire to help and the confidence that even the smallest contribution is useful become the starting point of Third Sector. As stated by surveys of the National Institute of Youth, volunteering enjoys a positive social connotation. But, apart from that, boys and girls generally feel closer to hunger, sanitary deficiencies or natural disasters, wherever they occur. Youngsters are more worried than the rest of population about what is wrong with the world; they find it easy to bring global vision into their local lives.

In this regard, Joly Navarro says that what it is effective is emotion. The responsible for Volunteering of Intered considers that we don't act with strength, we don't get our blood boiling, unless we live something:

- We listen to news, see poverty rates, mortality statistics, illiteracy, we are up on our eyes in wars… But we feel it far away. We have learnt to wear our 'raincoat' in order to protect ourselves. However, when you travel and meet people, you realised there are something else. You get imbued with the context and become understanding it better. What you offer them, it multiplies.

Civic Commitment

Nevertheless, despite their contribution, volunteers in general (and, above all, young volunteers) are completely invisible. Their silent work changes society in an altruistic way. On the other side, a negative perception dominates the youth's social image. Laura Maria thinks that commitment is the only problem with young people; it appears, moreover, that it is the main disease of voluntary sector.

- It still exist a little fear to become involved in a social non-for-profit organisation. You can help each other in your city or neighbourhood too, but you are usually afraid of being part of an association or a formal group.

It is clearer when referring to international volunteering. This activity needs specific previous education. For instance, Intered has trained volunteers since 1983. Its intensive courses let the association go deeper into the causes of social injustices and how to put an end to it. They work on dialogue and critical awareness.

Joly Navarro confirms that previous knowledge is more and more important every day. It makes the commitment even more complicated and the first challenge of non-governmental organisations: how to engage volunteers in social service and how to keep them when they finish their contribution.

Lack of information

The second purpose: improving communication. "Information is everywhere but you have to find it out", Antonia Ceballos explains. She is also a volunteer from Andalusia, but she will be living in Slovakia until September 2010. Antonia is teaching Spanish language in a small village, near Poland border.

- When you meet youngsters in the context of voluntary activity, you easily apprehend that they are always the same people. There is a small group well informed and then a large part of society who know nothing. I am sure social organisations make great efforts to obtain new participants but it is precise to look for new strategies.

And they are doing it. Non-for-profit organisations are adapting themselves to social exigencies and promoting new voluntary forms. It is time to renew voluntary tasks. Cyber-volunteering and punctual contributions are examples. Tools within reach of young volunteers who want to play the leading role in the social change.


(Published: 11.10.2009.)