Girona Voluntària is a new non-profit federation made up of 9 social entities in the city that aims to expand and rejuvenate current volunteering and offer services that go far beyond social issues. The platform is committed to creating a pool of independent volunteers to be able to support Girona organizations.
The driving forces behind the new federation are: the AFA of the Palau Special Education Center, the MIFAS Association, the Oncolliga Foundation, the SERGI Foundation, the Multicapacity Association, the Sant Vicenç de Paül Foundation, Support-Fundació Tutelar Girona , the GEiEG-Grup Excursionista i Esportiu Gironí and the Fundació Ramon Noguera. The organizations will work together and with the intention of transforming volunteering into a common and shared project.
The president of Girona Voluntària, Maria Mercè Roca, explained that, although the current voluntary fabric of the Girona counties is very powerful, it needs to be expanded. That is why they want to reach young people, as many of the volunteers are elderly people with time to devote to a project of an entity. From Girona Voluntària they defend that volunteering must be lived for a lifetime and for this reason they will carry out awareness campaigns to encourage people of all ages to become volunteers. In addition, the new federation wants to expand its field of action and not close only to the social sphere, as society today has many demands and the administrations do not get there.
Girona Voluntària will begin its activities in the city of Girona with the intention of growing and expanding to the rest of Girona. As a haystack, the new federation wants to maintain a management of proximity and quick and direct dialogue between the entities. For this reason, they want to create a joint volunteer scholarship where they will have in reserve, as they have commented, all the people who want to do any kind of volunteering. In this sense, volunteers will not be linked to a specific entity but will be versatile, although they may indicate their interests so that the entities can contact them. Another type of volunteering that they will promote will be family volunteering, which is not very common in Catalonia, but from Girona Voluntària is seen as the way to lay the foundations of what will be the seed of volunteering in young people.
The Girona Voluntària website will soon be operational with all the information to be a participant.
