New definition of 'volunteerism'

Besides organizing the Summer Camp and being busy entertaining the children, XS21World finds it important that its participants get time to discuss, exchange ideas and listen to experts on different issues concerned with our foundation.
On August 4th we held a workshop at Hekima Waldorf School on the topic of ‘volunteerism’. To promote ‘volunteerism’ in all its aspects is the first aim of XS21World. For this reason we wanted to gather experiences from the participants, listen to their ideas about the matter, see how it is connected to their personal development and the development of society.
Our first speaker was the Dutch Ambassador, Karel van Kesteren who spoke on the relation between Holland and Tanzania and the importance of exchange projects and ‘volunteerism’ to connect the people from two worlds. Afterwards he had a lot of questions to answer from the audience, the most memorable being ‘how can I become an ambassador?’
The second speaker was Imma Mbuguni from Center for Social Change, a Tanzanian initiative that teaches people to apply knowledge in their daily lives, to work with creativity and to learn from their work so that they help the society to develop. It was the idea of using creativity that appealed most to our participants who had done that every day during the Summer Camp trying to deal with the environment and lack of resources.
The third speaker was Rashidi Mbuguni, founding father of our foundation, who spoke of the nature of a human being to be creative and the importance for all of us to do what we are here for in the world. With his charisma he reached out to the hearts of many of the listeners.
Afterwards there was time for discussion whereby small groups tried to find answers to questions about ‘volunteerism’ and last but not least to give the definition of ‘volunteerism’.
The conclusion of the day was that there are two different definitions. One is the ‘volunteerism’ that you do because of the respect and gratitude you get from the receiver of your work. The happy children in the Summer Camp for example give our participants a boost of energy to keep going. You might also do it because of relevant work experience that you get, or because your environment expects you to do so. In the second definition ‘volunteerism’ is the type of work that you know to be so important that you do it from your heart, without expecting something in return. You would even do it when people dislike you for it. This is the true volunteerism the participants said, but also unrealistic because they found that you need to get something back for your effort.
The workshop was a good opportunity to study the aims of the foundation and to see the work of the Summer Camp in a wider perspective. In the future we wish to create more time for such days focusing on ideas, debate and the exchange of views.