22 October 2008

Quito, Ecuador: Volunteerism for development has been formally recognized for the first time in the new Constitution of Ecuador. The Constitution, which was approved through a referendum on 28 September 2008, recognizes volunteerism for development “as a form of social participation”. This move will allow legislators to draft a new law on volunteerism for development in Ecuador.

The ‘Mesa de Voluntariado de Ecuador’ (MVE) - the National Roundtable on Volunteerism - had an important part to play in the inclusion of volunteerism in the new Constitution. The MVE has been supported by the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme since its creation in 2004. Its aim is to strengthen and to promote volunteerism in Ecuador. It comprises 24 national and international umbrella volunteer involving organizations, with some 350 associated organizations throughout the country. The idea of the MVE was to help coordinate the volunteer initiatives of the different organizations, and to optimize all resources so as to better meet the needs identified at the community level.

Volunteerism in Ecuador enjoys a long tradition, with customs such as the Andean ‘minga’ (mutual aid between neighbours of a community), and more recently with a great number of well organized and well structured volunteer organizations. However, volunteering in Ecuador has been associated with a ‘traditional’ model, linked to the concept of charity and benevolence. Gabriela de la Cruz, Operations Coordinator at MVE member organization ‘Fundación Cecilia Rivadeneira’ thinks that “all these organizations coming together to form the MVE have contributed to changing this traditional perspective, and people have started to view volunteerism as a resource for the country’s economic development”.

As revealed by the findings of a study on ‘Volunteerism in Ecuador and its inclusion in public policies’, the contribution of volunteerism to the country’s economy is indeed considerable. A joint initiative by MVE, the government-linked Secretariat for Citizenship Participation and Volunteerism (SCPV), the ‘Servicio Ignaciano de Voluntariado’ (SIGVOL), and UNV Ecuador, the study shows that today Ecuador has around 500,000 volunteers, representing between 2 and 3 percent of the country’s GDP.

Carlos Arrieta, UNV volunteer promoter in Ecuador, argues that “before the MVE was created, Ecuador did not have public policies providing visibility and support for volunteering initiatives; the MVE has allowed us to stress the importance of civic engagement and to strengthen volunteerism, and it has facilitated the inclusion of the text about volunteerism in the new Constitution. This is a crucial first step towards recognizing volunteerism and its contributions”.

After a participatory process involving 185 volunteer organizations throughout the country and members of the SCPV, in February 2008 representatives of these organizations held a National Volunteering Assembly. The purpose of the Assembly was to agree on the aspects to be included in the Draft Law on Volunteerism, as well as to draw up a ‘Proposal for the inclusion of volunteerism in Ecuador’s public policies’.

This proposal, which included demands such as the establishment of volunteerism as a legal entity in the Constitution, and the approval of the Draft Law on Volunteerism, was submitted in March 2008 to the National Constituent Assembly, responsible for drawing up the new Constitution.

The culmination of this process was the inclusion of reference to social and development volunteerism in the chapter about ‘Participation in Democracy’ of the new Constitution. This is the first recognition of the contribution that volunteerism makes to development in Ecuador, paving the way for submitting the Draft Law on Volunteerism for legal consideration by the relevant body.