IAVE World Volunteer Conference – Mexico City

November 2016 brought Durham University Staff Volunteering to the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) World Volunteer Conference in Mexico City.  Founded in 1970, IAVE exists to promote, strengthen and celebrate volunteering in the myriad ways it happens throughout the world. The conference, running over three full days brought together volunteering organisations and professionals from over 70 countries. 

Opening Ceremony IAVE World Conference

The opening ceremony in the main hall of the Pepsi Convention Centre, within the main World Trade Centre complex, was a showy affair demonstrating the scale and ambition of IAVE.  Thereafter the range of themes covered everything from corporate volunteering, volunteers in conflict areas to research design and implementation and everything in between.

As well as attending a range of these fascinating workshops and fora, Andy Cattermole, Head of Staff Volunteering, fronted two sessions on behalf of the University: a presentation/discussion forum entitled ‘Educational Institutions as Leaders for Volunteering’ and also a round table discussion entitled ‘Students as Volunteers: Meaningful Engagement’.  Both sessions were well received and helped to provide healthy discussion around the topics.

 

Volunteer helpers assist delegates on opening day

 

What was clear from the conference is that Employer Supported Volunteering (ESV), as per the Durham University model, is popular in a number of countries within the corporate and governmental sectors but less so in the Higher Education sector worldwide.  Furthermore, some headline research presented at the conference specifically relating to ESV in the UK seemed to suggest much rosier ESV activity than perhaps is happening in reality.

Lessons to be learned were many but certainly the need for greater international co-operation and best practice sharing was evident as was our own national and global profile-raising.  Delegates were unanimously impressed at Durham’s volunteering impact at both staff and student levels, and in particular the administrative support model offered by the Experience Durham structure.

Mexico City itself proved to be a fascinating venue for the conference – a greater metropolitan region of more than 20 million people with probably even more cars than people, in which stark contrasts of extreme wealth and poverty co-exist side by side.

 

At nine o’clock at night the traffic is incessant

 

It also apparently rarely rains in Mexico City in November, the picture below suggests otherwise as storms and torrential rain hit the city on the first full day. 

It never rains in November

 

The fact that the conference occurred during the American Presidential election, with its unexpected outcome, also produced vigorous reactions from the Mexican population, deeply concerned as to the impacts of a Trump victory.  After the dust settled, the considered view was that organisations such as IAVE and its wonderfully proactive membership, would be needed even more now, given such an uncertain world outlook.  When the biennial conference reconvenes in Augsburg, Germany in 2018, it will be fascinating see how the sector, and the wider world itself, has fared in that intervening period.

One of our strategic aims is to try to continue to disseminate and discuss our volunteering work with national and international colleagues, to hopefully increase learning and share best practice.  With this in mind, members of the team will also be attending the leading UK’s Public Engagement conference, the NCCPE’s (National Centre for Co-Ordinating Public Engagement) Engage 2016 Conference in Bristol later this month.

 

 

A leftover from the previous week’s Day of the Dead celebrations

 

 

Mural celebrating Frida Kahlo, renowned Mexican artist and the Day of the Dead