The way volontary activity developed in Poland
December 27, 2011 
1 Comment
Dear “Tell me about your commitment” Friends.
During our last meeting in Słupsk, we all watched with some pleasure relatively short video presented by Mr Piekarski of The Academia Pomorska in Słupsk. The video, with en English translation, shows “winding roads” along which volontary activity developed. “The winding roads” here mentioned began in the early history of Poland and with changing moods of history run into contemporary decades of nowdays Poland. The short presentation, non the less informative and not without witty comments, portrays those persons who contributed to the essential development of such activity and describes ever widening circle of those who more or less depend on volontary assistance.
We should very much intersted in getting your comments on how volontary activity developed in your home country and which are the biggest challenges at the present.
The video has the Polish soundtrack and English subtitles which are to be activated by choosing additional file. Both files are attached to this post.
Dear Friends in Slupsk,
Thank you for the interesting information.
In the discussions we had in the past with volunteers, one of the main problems or dilemmas that came up was: what can I do as a volunteer (pensioner) but not take jobs from other, younger, people?
By the way, if you are interested, there are some good (and short)articles in the web about the history of voluntary work in Germany, for example:
1. a lecture by Prof.Dr.Stephan F. Wagner, in which he also discusses the relationhip of volunteers and employed persons in an organisation (to dowload from: http://www.ehrenamtsbibliothek.de/literatur/Kurze%20Geschichte%20der%20Ehrenamtlichkeit.pdf)
or
2. a good description is in Wikipedia (you can have it translated by Google) at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrenamt
Here a relationship is made to the development of voluntary work also in other countries, besides history of voluntary work, addressed are subjects such as motivation, insurance, etc. Very interesting.
With best regards and wishes,
Gaby
ViLE e.V. from Ulm
Gabriela