Report (Part 2): Conference on Volunteering and ICTs

Summary and Keynote Speech on Common Goals and Shared Visions

Date: 7 December 2003, 15h00 to 15h30
Moderators: Viola Krebs, ICVolunteers and Focal Point for WSIS Volunteer Family
Reporters: Randy Schmieder

In this session, participants from different world regions presented successful examples of how volunteering can contribute to human development and bridging the digital divide.

Kumi Naidoo of CIVICUS (World Alliance for Citizen Participation) immediately attacked stereotypes of volunteers as “helpers”. An important challenge for the volunteer community is to bridge the gap between volunteering and social activism, which has caused confusion for people in the past: “Most people think of soup kitchens. We need to change this. If you try to deal with the digital divide as a little illness without looking at links to bigger global challenges, we will get nowhere. The bottom line is that we live in a world of inequality. The cost of pet food in the North is often more than the cost of living in the South,” Naidoo underlined.

He went on to point out that one of the more interesting aspects of what people term the “anti-globalization movement” is that it in itself is one of the most globalized movements of them all. ICTs allow people to work across borders and mobilize large number of people.

However, Naidoo also underlined that ICTs are not without risks: child pornography, anti-semitism, and Islamophobia are all too familiar issues.

Challenges:

First, Naidoo stressed the need to understand the distinction between the two ends of the debate. On one hand, we are asking “how can we help promote development”; on the other “how can we help volunteers contribute to the ICT environment to make it more just”?

Second, Naidoo stressed that hard choices come when addressing the digital divide: we need to be mindful of the choices that face us, so we can respond to criticism. How does one deal with Internet and ICT access for people living with HIV? Do we look at those who are more socially marginalized? Do we invest in people with limited lifespan? What about lack of languages?

The third challenge is that volunteerism has an option to operate at one or several of three levels: macro (governance), mezzo (policy), and micro (direct help) levels. Which one should we choose? The micro level is where we usually operate: logistics. Yet, without also working at the mezzo level, addressing policy and funding (e.g. should there be a support fund for access?) and at the macro level, dealing with questions of Internet governance and the recognition of volunteers as valuable partners at a global level, we are not going to get anywhere. Mr. Naidoo urged the volunteer community to be confident: “We should feel we have a right to have a voice, rather than wait for decisions and just work with them.”

Finally, one further challenge: The ICT subject spews technical terms. The kinds of issues discussed are often technocratic: “We run the risk of putting our existing work in jeopardy, as people will not understand what we are doing. It is a big challenge to make sure that what we are adding is available for all people to understand,” Naidoo pointed out.

Volunteering, ultimately, is an individual act of compassion, solidarity and love. In a technical subject, this is a challenge to keep this in mind.

Naidoo went on to cite John Clark, Policy Advisor of Oxfam for several years, who once said while at a CIVICUS meeting in the Philippines: “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day…” He now realized that this is not the end of the story… “If you teach a man to fish, does he have access to unpolluted water?”

Naidoo put it into more simple terms: “People have built-in capacities. What we need to do is enhance these capacities.” Naidoo stressed the need to look at issues of access and issues of power. “If we fail to address these two questions, we will fail no matter how many trainings we organize.”

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