LIMERICK Volunteer Centre (LVC) gave a valuable lesson in social innovation to the United Nations in Geneva during a recent international conference on volunteering.
Acting coordinator of Limerick Volunteer Centre, Paul Moriarty, spoke at the conference, which was hosted by the Russian Delegation to the UN. With representatives mainly from Europe, Africa and Asia, Paul flew the flag for the Treaty City during the two-day event.
Bringing the rain with him, Paul still managed to brighten proceedings as he told representatives from NGOs and social organisations about LVC’s work through school volunteering programs, corporate programs, Third Level student programs and event stewarding as well as community amenity paint jobs and environmental clean ups across the county.
“This year with Limerick hosting the Special Olympics and our designation as City of Culture we decided to introduce a special Volunteer Discount Card Scheme. The idea being to empower voluntary organisations with a very practical way to reward their volunteers,” Mr Moriarty explained.
“We visited retailers across the city and county. We asked them if they would offer a special discount to card carrying volunteers. As a result 86 retailers have so far signed up,” he said.
According to Mr Moriarty, the Russian Federation is particularly interested in the whole field of volunteering. He maintains that unlike Ireland volunteering is not as ingrained in the culture of many former Eastern bloc countries.
“The lines between social volunteering and mandatory duty were blurred during the era of Communism. Although this situation is improving there is still a challenge to former Communist States in selling the benefits of volunteering. By all measures, be they economic, health or happiness, volunteering is proven to be of great benefit to society as well as to the volunteers themselves,” he enthused.
For more details on LVC log onto www.volunteerlimerick.ie.
