VOLUNTEERING INFRASTRUCTURE

is important. There are many examples of people who do not refer to themselves as beingvolunteers; however, after some explanation they realise they actually are volunteers.3. Legal framework for volunteeringand its implementationUntil 2011, there was no complex legal framework for volunteering in Slovakia. Nowadays,Slovak legislation partially determines two specific volunteer services – youth volunteer servicesand services of unemployed people.The Law on Employment Services (no. 5/2004) defines volunteering as a possible activityfor unemployed people. According to this law, these people can be engaged in the so-calledactivation work within the civil sector. It is a way for unemployed people to receive some extraincome in addition to their unemployment benefit. Therefore, the volunteering sector does notsee this service as a volunteer service and perceives the term volunteering inthis law to be used in a very misleading way.Law no. 282/2008 on the Support of Work with Youth devotes one partto the volunteering of youth. This law does not define terms such as“volunteering” or “volunteer”; it just determines the age and status of ayoung volunteer. It sets several duties for volunteer organisations which aremainly based on the concept of the European Volunteer Service, an actionwithin the Youth in Action programme of the EU. Therefore both lawsconsiderably increase the misunderstanding of the concept of volunteering.Discussions about the need for a complex legal framework for volunteering in Slovakia startedin 2002. At that time, some NGOs attempted to pass a Code of Non-Profit Law in an effort tounite all legislation related to the NGO sector. However, due to criticism within the NGO sector,this law was abandoned. In 2007, Slovak volunteer organisations again started the debate onthe legal framework for volunteering. The reason why Slovak volunteer organisations focusedon legal issues is that many of them (together with some public organisations) had to deal withlegal problems while working with volunteers. These included problems such as:1. There was no concept or definition of volunteering. In the Slovak legal system the concept of“volunteer” did not exist. Therefore a volunteer could be perceived as a person working on the blackmarket. Since the status of volunteer was missing, so was the accounting scheme for volunteerexpenses. Thus in the Slovak legislation volunteer expenses were not eligible.2. There was no support for volunteering from the national/local governments. There was no specificgrant or strategic programme for the development of volunteer centres and organisations. Throughthe adoption of a Law on Volunteering, volunteer organisations wanted to start a discussion aboutthe national strategy for financial support of the volunteer sector in Slovakia.3. As regards international volunteering, there was a significant obstacle for Slovak citizens whovolunteered abroad on a long term basis. They had to pay social insurance out of pocket if theywanted the social insurance company to count the time period they spent abroad volunteering astheir working time. Otherwise, the state saw the time they spent abroad in the same way as ifthey had been unemployed and did not count this time into their pension. That is why the law wasaimed to enable the sending organisations to pay social insurance for volunteers.Unemployed people canbe engaged in “volunteering“or “activation work” inorder to supplement theirbenefits. But this is nottruly volunteering -the term is used in a verymisleading way.357 Volunteering infrastructure in Europe 25 Slovakia