Back The power of Volunteering - Coyote - Issue # 17

Hello readers!

These are still exciting times in Coyote land. We continue to experiment and refine ideas about how to produce the magazine in a way that reflects the times and major concerns in the world of youth work. And we have been encouraged by the feedback we have received about the last issue. In terms of taking different approaches to the layout, Marlies Pöschl’s input has been crucial and it has been great to see how the Big Family designers have incorporated her work and suggestions.

So, THE POWER OF VOLUNTEERING is our major theme and putting this issue together has been quite an adventure. Lots of discussions continued throughout the research and production processes. An attentive observer could hear all sorts of things:

  • Where to situate volunteering in the twenty first century? Is social media playing any role in it?
  • Less and less people believe that altruism is enough of an explanation about why anybody would want to be a volunteer. And what if they also should have rights?
  • If there are fewer and fewer paid jobs to be found nowadays, what is the sense or value of engaging volunteers?
  • 2011 is the European Year of Volunteering and it’s ten years since the International Year of Volunteering – who knows? Who cares? What difference does it make?
  • If we talk of volunteering in specific contexts and situations, then we cannot miss what is going on in the revolutions in the mainly Arab world…
  • Can we contact an organisation to get a feel for the volunteer effort in Lorca after the earthquakes there?
  • We definitely need to show more from outside of Europe this time.
  • Where does love come in (if at all)? And education in the buffer zone creates different types of hope…
  • Let’s make some volunteer art too!
  • When do we start to use genderneutral language in Coyote? In youth work?

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