I went to a seminar early November organised by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Third Sector European Network (TSEN) to explore the value of volunteering. All the presentations of the seminar are now available on the ESRC website and I believe a summary document will shortly be uploaded. The presentations by the Office of the Third Sector (Sarah Benioff) and the Department of Work and Pension (Zoe Alexander) provided a useful overview of why government supports volunteering and how in the current context volunteering is seen as a pathway to employment. Jeremy Kendall’s presentation from the University of Kent) had some really interesting international comparisons and contained a thought-provoking analysis of the policy context of volunteering and how it has evolved since Beveridge. For more information on Jeremy’s analysis you may also want to have a look at the paper he has written for the Third Sector Research Centre.
Posts Tagged ‘international’
The value of volunteering
Sunday, November 15th, 2009The Internet and civic engagement
Thursday, September 24th, 2009The latest report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that ‘contrary to the hopes of some advocates, the internet is not changing the socio-economic character of civic engagement in America. Just as in offline civic life, the well-to-do and well-educated are more likely than those less well off to participate in online political activities such as emailing a government official, signing an online petition or making a political contribution’. Interestingly it also finds that those who have used the internet for some form of civic engagement are disproportionately young.
