POLISH VOLUNTEER AID TO HELP THE WORLD’S MOST NEEDY

Polish Radio External Service
artykul85218_Polish_Volunteer_Aid_to_help_the_worl d_s_most_needy.html
June 20 2008
Poland

The Polish Foreign Ministry has just launched a new programme for
volunteers who provide help to people from the most impoverished
regions of the world. The government-led scheme is geared to cover
health and travel expenses for Polish volunteers – ambassadors of
good will.

Bogdan Zaryn reports.

Judyta is just one of 31 Polish volunteers who has traded a vacation
of fun in the sun on the Baltic, for a lesson of true reality in
poverty-stricken Armenia under the Foreign Ministry scheme Polish
Volunteer Aid 2008: ‘I am going to Armenia to help doctors set up a
hospice for the fatally ill.’

Under the scheme travel expenses, accommodations, vaccines and
medical check ups are all covered by the Foreign Ministry. In the
past, NGOs had to fend for themselves in raising revenues for such
endeavors. Dorota Gadzinowska, from the NGO Polish Humanitarian
Organization, says that the new scheme will definitely make a
difference in providing help abroad: ‘For the organizations it means
it’s a lot easier to get funds. Now we have a programme and before we
had to search for it somewhere else. ‘For the volunteers I think it is
important because there is Ministry support, no longer do we have to
hang on the fringes of society. No longer are volunteers considered
"weird" people going or "crazy" people, that they have support and
some recognition hopefully.’

The Polish Humanitarian Organization has an estimated 200
volunteers. Collecting funding, providing Trainer workshops and going
abroad to assist civil societies are just some of the activities on
a long roster. Minorities expert Marek Szopski thinks that Polish
volunteers can be crucial in cultivating future good Samaritans: ‘In
the past there really wasn’t that much official support for volunteer
action. Unusually that was supported or funded from other sources. I
see the change as a very positive one because it will certainly use
the energy and the talent of a lot of particularly young people. That
is something that actually considering their commitment and usually
pretty good understanding and intellectual capacities, I think that
Poland can contribute quite a lot. There are young people who find
their individual responsibilities much more shouldered. They can
display their imitative and their talent which often is curbed in
the local conditions.’

The Foreign Ministry Polish Volunteer Aid 2008 plans to send Polish
relief to Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.