National Programme for Youth Volunteering

There is no national programme for youth volunteering in the form of a general, nation-wide programme organized, monitored and funded by the state.

There are several youth volunteering schemes in place at the national level. In the scope of formal education, volunteering is a part of regular extracurricular activities in many secondary schools, which is supported by a detailed programme, “Voluntarism and Youth – Education programme for extracurricular activities in gymnasiums and vocational high schools”, developed by the Bureau for Education Services, Centre for Vocational Education and ADP-Zid. Volunteering at the national level is also closely connected to the projects and programmes of nongovernmental organizations.

Funding

 

There is no specific budget allocated specifically to youth volunteering schemes. Nongovernmental organizations that implement youth policy in line with the Youth Strategy 2017-2021 and its action plans can be financially supported through the public calls based on the Law on Non-governmental Organizations. NGOs’ projects have been implemented in line with the six key priorities of the Strategy, one of which relates to the active participation of young people and volunteering.

For instance, in 2018, support was given to 25 projects which incorporated measures and activities related to the key priority C of the National Youth Strategy – “Young people are active citizens, involved, motivated, proactive, and participate in decision and policy-making and development of their communities” , including measures for developing volunteer spirit and volunteerism among young people. According to the report on the realization of the Action plan in 2018, €121 198 were allocated to the support of the projects, but there is no information on how much of that sum was dedicated to supporting youth volunteering. According to the report on implementation of the Action Plan for 2019, €15 000 was dedicated to projects aimed at promoting volunteerism and supporting activities of volunteering clubs and services. In addition, the report includes information on celebrating International Volunteer Day, but it does not specify the amount allocated to this activity.

Also is very important to point out that the Strategy for Development of the Civil Society Organizations has defined cooperation between Government and NGOs in line with voluntary activities but this Strategy did not have budget for its implementation. 

Characteristics of youth volunteering

There are no official statistics on the level and trends of participation of young people in volunteering. The research of needs of young people conducted in 2019, commissioned in the process of preparing the Programme on Achieving Public Interest in the Field of Youth Policy for 2020 by the Ministry of Sports and Youth (Program ostvarivanja javnog interesa u oblasti omladinske politike za 2020. godinu), indicated that younger respondents had participated more in volunteer work, whereas young people with lower qualifications had participated less in volunteering, but there is no specific or detailed information on this topic.

The Youth Strategy lists “the share of young people who did volunteer work over the previous month” as an indicator of one of the key outcomes (p. 82). The Monitoring and Evaluation Framework developed within this strategy specifies that it is necessary to carry out a national survey to collect data for this indicator and to add national disaggregation by region, gender and vulnerability. However, this has not been completed and the reports on the implementation of action plans for 2017, 2018 and 2019 do not include information on this indicator. 

Support for young volunteers

According to the Law on Voluntary Work, organizers and beneficiaries of volunteering are obliged to ensure adequate conditions and resources for volunteering and to cover the compensation of the previously agreed expenses (Article 21). The Law also stipulates that organizers of volunteering should insure a volunteer in case of injury or occupational disease during the duration of the engagement (Article 22).

In the case of international volunteers, the Law also states that the organizers of volunteering should cover the compensation of the previously agreed expenses related to the accommodation, training and travel (Article 17).

Quality assurance

According to the Law on Voluntary Work, the organizer of volunteering is obliged to keep records of concluded contracts. The Employment Agency has a responsibility to keep a central database of the organizers, beneficiaries of volunteering and volunteers, based on data provided by the organizers of volunteering. It should be noted that there are many volunteering programmes organized without signing a contract, since the Law is seen as restrictive (more information in Chapter 2.8), which is why this database is likely to be incomplete.

NGOs implementing projects that include volunteering, which are financially supported through public calls, submit reports on project implementation in line with the established procedures. They report on the number of young people taking part in volunteering activities and, depending on the project, include some additional information in their reports. However, there are no general criteria, indicators or standards used to assess the quality of programmes and schemes of youth volunteering and voluntary based services (community and social services) in general.