Page 17 - YOU Magazine | Issue 2

health condition work without payment. A slightly higher proportion of those over 65
years of age volunteer their time, accounting for 17 per cent of all volunteers, with senior volunteers believed to contribute an average of 411 hours each per year.
VA interim CEO Mark Pearce says these volunteers play a key role in connecting communities across Australia.
“Senior volunteers or those living with a disability, bring an incredible amount of compassion, selflessness and value to the communities and organisations which they support,” he says.
“Without their tireless efforts, which many Australians rely upon, our economic and social wellbeing would be greatly impacted.”
The barriers
Just weeks ago, VA commissioned the Australian National University Centre for Social Research and Methods to undertake analysis of the experience of volunteers during COVID-19.
The research revealed that the decline in volunteering during the pandemic has been
substantial, with nearly two
thirds (65.9 per cent) of volunteers estimated to have stopped volunteering between February and April, 2020.
The researchers estimate that this reduction in volunteering is equivalent to 12.2 million hours per week.
But it’s not just Coronavirus that has stopped more Australian seniors or those living with disability from working voluntarily.
In a 2018 submission called
Market Readiness Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Pearce’s predecessor Adrienne Picone suggested that while there may be a willingness
from a participant to engage with the market, it was clear that organisations had a
lack of human and financial resources that prohibited them from engaging volunteers
with barriers. The former CEO identified the prohibitive engagement with the market as a “real concern”.
“A general lack of resources and funding for organisations in the volunteering sector has
been found to inhibit a Volunteer Involving Organisation’s (VIO’s) ability to recognise their existing volunteer base,” she noted.
Inclusion Melbourne, which was set up to support people with an intellectual disability to ensure they take their place as equal members in their communities, says people with a disability are a tremendous resource to any VIO.
It agrees this is often untapped due to “unhelpful stereotypes,
a lack of knowledge about their presence in local communities or ineffective communication about their desire to get involved”.
The stigma attached to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities means that often they are not afforded as many opportunities to volunteer in the community as they would like.
Complicating the issue is that many people perceive people with disabilities as the ones in need
of service.
Mark Wilson, who has been volunteering for 12 years, says he experienced this firsthand whilst working for a cancer charity in the United Kingdom.
You WINTER 2020 17