Challenges of volunteering

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How can young people be called to community service today? What motivates volunteering where actual benefit from all the work they put in can't be seen? In a conference organised by the Evangelical Church, in partnership with KIE and Y's Man, we sought to answer these questions.

There are many ways to create and maintain community, but it comes with many challenges, especially if it's about volunteering.

The presentation looked in detail at the differences between generations in terms of their roles and motivations in the workplace, which are important considerations when recruiting the next generation. In addition, we focused on the Yerkes-Dodson law to understand the sources of negative and positive stress, and then analysed the 5 steps of burn-out.

It is important that community work should not lead to burnout - and the community and its network of relationships between its members play a huge role in this. Energies are generated in the experience of intimacy, i.e. the community and the individual's autonomous creativity and competence - this can be effective if it develops organically, arises from individual motivations and finds support.

God has called us to create and given us the power to do so! If we are given the space, we can create.