Volunteer responses to COVID-19: what can we learn moving forward?

Unprecedented and complex challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted many volunteers around the world to respond in a variety of ways and scales. National governments are mobilising volunteers to contribute towards strained public services. In many contexts, especially where the hand of the state is constrained, people often turn to each other for support during a crisis — creating and/or maintaining local mutual aid and self-help groups especially within poorer and more vulnerable communities. While volunteers’ contributions are often recognised, their participation also carries many challenges such as safety, security and wellbeing, appropriation of conflicting agenda and miscoordination of diverse efforts. In this online discussion, we explore some of these ongoing volunteer responses to COVID-19 in Sierra Leone, Nepal and the UK while also thinking about potential solutions to issues that they raise. We aim for this discussion to be a space for volunteers, volunteer organisations, policy-makers, academics and practitioners to share critical insights and learning which would hopefully help shape future actions in this incredible time.

This webinar is co-hosted by the UNESCO Chair in Adult Literacy and Learning for Social Transformation and the Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR).

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The UNESCO Chair programme at UEA aims to develop understanding about how adult learning – particularly for women and young adults - can help address inequalities in the poorest communities of the world. Through investigating how or why adult literacy might facilitate or respond to processes of social transformation, including women’s empowerment, the Chair programme sets out to strengthen the interaction between formal, non-formal and informal learning in research, policy and programmes.
https://www.uea.ac.uk/education/research/areas/literacy-and-development/unesco-chair

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IVR’s mission is to support and undertake high quality volunteering research to bring about a world in which the power and energy of volunteering and the difference volunteering and volunteering research make to individuals and communities is well understood, so that individuals can be confident and feel safe about their decision to volunteer and communities grow stronger.
https://www.uea.ac.uk/medicine-health-sciences/ivr