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Voluntary service in society today

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

Jacques Meurant
Jacques Meurant*
Affiliation:
Director Henry Dunant Institute
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Extract

“Voluntary work, less and less an activity undertaken by a small minority for the benefit of the majority, is becoming a natural means for the majority to participate in the life of the community, through pressure groups or directly influencing their environment or by other means.”

This definition, in a British Government paper to the United Nations Environment Conference in Stockholm in June 1972, well summarizes the significance and scope of voluntary work in society today and the way in which the concept of voluntary service has evolved.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of the Red Cross (1961 - 1997) , Volume 19 , Issue 212 , October 1979 , pp. 227 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1979

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References

page 227 note 1 Such is the definition of volontary service in the Red Cross. See Pictet, J.: The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross—Commentary, Henry Dunant Institute, Geneva, 1979, p. 70 Google Scholar.—The author wishes to express his gratitude to Mr. Jean Pictet for much valuable counsel in the preparation of this study.

page 230 note 1 Lossier, J. G.: Red Cross Service, in International Review of the Red Cross, 03–04 1978, p. 74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 231 note 1 Pictet, J., op. cit., p. 75.Google Scholar

page 236 note 1 One Fundamental Principle of the Red Cross stresses the benevolent character of the Red Cross. We shall not dwell on the definition of these two concepts, voluntarism and benevolence, nor on the shades of meaning which distinguish them: we shall concern ourselves only with the idea of service common to both.

page 236 note 2 Pictet, J., op. cit., p. 72.Google Scholar