VOLUNTEERING INFRASTRUCTURE

Media coverage during the EYV2011 featured volunteer stories and related informationthroughout the year. The wide coverage was not easy to maintain, for the media is alwaysinterested in sensational stories, in reports that represent news or that have a unique element.In 2012 there might be a saturation of public information on the theme; however thus far, theconnection with the media continues to be good.Additional channels of volunteer promotion and information dissemination are schools,organisations and companies, either through specific campaigns or through targeted, tailoredinformation, upon request.Volunteering promotion is achieving results. As previously mentioned more and more peopleare interested in volunteering. The challenge comes from the limited capacity to place volunteerswho express interest in volunteering and to effectively manage volunteers.10. Additional country specificitiesHungary is oneof the countrieswhere a VolunteerPassportsystem has beenimplemented.The VolunteerPassport is aninstrument thatallows people tokeep a record ofand capitalise ontheir volunteerexperience,a tool for therecognition ofthese skills.One of the strengths in the Hungarian law on volunteering lies in its provisions that specificallylook at ensuring that volunteering is compatible with the receipt of social benefits such asunemployment. Other laws have taken this aspect further however, into a greyer area. If aperson is unemployed for a long time, the state considers that they must return somethingto the community and show their readiness to contribute to the community and prove theirreadiness to work. As such, long term unemployed people need to serve for 30 days a year inthe community, and failing to do so will have as a consequence the loss of their social benefitentitlements. Whereas the state expectation for community work from people under its socialbenefit scheme is not unnatural, the fact that this mandatory service in particular is wronglyreferred to as volunteering runs the risk of causing confusion on the concept in the publicopinion. This concern was raised by the volunteering sector. However the government stillcalls it volunteering in the absence of another term. Moreover, because of the nature of theservice (community work for public benefit) volunteer centres are expected to work with localgovernments and employment agencies on this programme and identify placements for the30 days of community work. At the same time it is a great opportunity for the Centres to buildconnections locally and for the unemployed to gain work experience, the feeling of team work,belonging and responsibility next to many indirect advantages.There is also a plan to change the Criminal Act to give the possibility to offer community workas an alternative to time spent in prison, in the case of minor offences, with the aim of buildingstronger communities through service and contributing to the integration of people in conflictwith the law. This community work will not be called volunteering, and rightfully so. Howeverthe conceptual and practical set-up of this scheme is of interest to the voluntary sector.Hungary is one of the countries in Europe where a Volunteer Passport system has beendeveloped and implemented. The Volunteer Passport is an instrument that allows people tokeep a record of their volunteer experience, as well as document the skills they gained throughvolunteer work, as a pathway to the recognition of these skills. Moreover, a handbook onskills recognition was developed in 2005. The volunteer passports are not yet widely used -theimplementation of such a system is usually slow. However, importantly volunteer work andqualifications or skills gained through volunteering are more and more frequently reflected bypeople in their CV and highly regarded by employers.182 Volunteering infrastructure in Europe 13 Hungary