International Volunteer Day, December 5, was established by the UN in 1985 and, since than, all over the world governments, the UN and civil society organizations organize activities celebrating the International Volunteer Day and promoting voluntarism on the local, national and international level.
International Volunteer Day, December 5, was established by the UN in 1985 and, since than, all over the world governments, the UN and civil society organizations organize activities celebrating the International Volunteer Day and promoting voluntarism on the local, national and international level.
Croatian network of CSOs consisting of GONG, Center for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights Osijek, PRONI Center, Osijek Greens, MI Split, SMART, Volunteer Center Osijek and MoSt, organized in 2006 a series of activities celebrating December 5 in Croatia aiming to inform and motivate Croatian citizens to volunteer. Having in mind that majority of the Croatian population is not familiar with the concept of voluntarism and are not encouraged to volunteer, GONG organized a two-week media campaign with video and audio clips about voluntarism (“Goodman”) that were aired free of charge on the Croatian Radio-Television (HRT) and commercial TV and radio stations, and were made available for downloading from GONG web site. Media campaign was supported by numerous promotional activities, conferences and events all over Croatia.
GONG representative has been nominated to the National Council for Development of Voluntarism. National Council for Development of Voluntarism is advisory body of Government of Croatia, whose work is public and which implements measures and activities with aim to promote and develop voluntarism. Council proposes measures for enhancing volunteer positions, decides on national award for voluntarism, adopts Ethical Code of Volunteers. Members of National Council are representatives of institutions, independent experts and representatives of civil society dealing with voluntarism. Minutes form the meetings and other materials can be found at here.
National Council has adopted Ethical Code of Volunteers after public debate in May 2008.