As part of the European Year of Volunteering, Tallinn Sokos Hotel Viru will host a three-day symposium (held in English) titled "The future of volunteering: concepts, trends, visions". The event will focus on the shape of volunteering today and tomorrow.
The original invitation reads:
The European Year of Volunteering 2011 is the latest peak in the growing public awareness that our societies are better off with active citizens. [—] This seems like a perfect moment for us to hold our breath and to ask ourselves: Quo vadis volunteering? Where are we and where should the journey go? What are the current trends in our sector and what is our vision for the future?
Many new features and new developments characterise the voluntary sector with new information technologies playing an ever increasing role in our daily lives; an increasing commercialisation of international voluntary service placements; the appearance of business players in the nonprofit world of volunteering; with changing patterns of engagement by volunteers; and with our societies facing an economic and financial crises that may lead to unprecedented transformations to our societies and to the way the state perceives the unpaid contribution of citizens to economy and society. [—]
The conference will strive to achieve the following objectives:
To provide an overview of the current trends in volunteering;
To facilitate a space for debate on controversies that have developed over time;
To identify the core concepts and inviolable values of volunteering we adhere to and that we want to safeguard;
To develop a vision for the decades to come of how volunteering will continue to serve as a central cornerstone in all European countries.