Try picturing over 100 organisations from Romania, all of them engaging during a full week in campaigns and various event formats that are envisioning a more open, fair and sustainable world, while aiming to increase public support for the 2030 Agenda and volunteering! This year marks the 18th anniversary of the National Volunteering Week, organized by Pro Vobis in Romania between 13th-20th May 2019 and supported with this occasion through the EU Presidency Project by FOND Romania! Therefore, it was only natural that this year’s thematic should be about the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.
By choosing the 2030 Agenda thematic, over 87 organisations across the country have been encouraged to design activities and campaigns targeting various needs, adding up by the end of the event to a total number of 150 different activities. In this regard, Pro Vobis provided visibility materials and guidance for actions that could be taken to promote the Sustainable Development Goals. Preliminary to the National Volunteering Week (NVW), Pro Vobis launched an `Idea Contest` under the EU Presidency Project, through which it empowered 25 organisations by providing a visibility toolkit consisting of various campaigning materials such as: t-shirts, agendas, bags, roll-ups, board games, post cards and many others.
The National Volunteering Week in numbers:
Direct beneficiaries
Indirect beneficiaries
Online reach
Like Agenda 2030, the actions of this NVW have addressed a wide range of needs, those of various communities involved. Volunteers of all ages have been engaged in activities that promote either the entire Agenda or specific Goals. Some examples of activity types were: creative and educational workshops, forestation actions, charity shows, fairs, information campaigns, debates and exhibitions. This year, their purpose went beyond the sheer promotion and celebration of volunteering! There was an increased interest in raising public awareness on various causes such as limited access to education or the poor living conditions of certain social groups. From preschoolers to grandparents, from NGOs and corporate sector to social institutions (local councils, mayors, libraries) – volunteers from all over the country have been part of the change!
This is a great opportunity to celebrate ourselves and the activities that we are doing. To tell everybody, in a very loud voice, that we are volunteering, we enjoy it, we give a lot to the community but this also gives a lot to us. We have reached a different stage (…) now, in the last years, the National Volunteering Week took a new shift, to point out a certain type of volunteering. And this year we are 18, is time to take different types of responsibilities!
Every year, the event involves thousands of volunteers and hundreds of partners from urban and rural communities, belonging to almost all Romanian counties. Alongside the International Volunteers Day (5 December), NVW is a benchmark event in the volunteer landscape in Romania, that promotes civic involvement and responsibility. And from this year onward, the 2030 Agenda more specifically! Learn more about Pro Vobis’s engagement over years with volunteering activities in Romania and the evolution of their annual National Volunteering Week by listening to our EU Presidency Talks episode below!