EVROPSKI POKRET U SMEDEREVSKOJ PALANCI

EUROPEAN MOVEMENT IN SMEDEREVSKA PALANKA

Ive Bajazita bb (P. BOX 18), 11420 Smed. Palanka, Serbia and Montenegro
Phone: +381 (0)26/318-106; GSM: +381 (0)64/190-44-60, Fax: +381 (0)26/318-406
E-mail: office@evropski-pokret.org.yu, Web: www.evropski-pokret.org.yu

Volunteerism and social capital1

Serbia and Montenegro is in transition, which means that the process of changes in different systems and
subsystems characteristic of a modern society is in progress. In the modern sense, transition refers to modernizing
and refreshing systems of values, institutions and manners of utilizing the resources of a community. One of the
significant resources reactivated during transition is mutual trust among all the participants in the process. Without
building, that is, revitalizing trust among the citizens on the local and national levels, there is no successful
transition. Transition, among other things, also refers to the development and encouragement of social creativity on
the individual level as well as the level of local communities, within and between social groups and on the national
level.
A synthesized indicator of participants’ trust within social work is developed social capital, which determines
the effectiveness and efficacy of utilizing financial/property capital and human capital.
Trust revitalization in a society is a synthesis of different social capital indicators on the level of the community
but basically everything begins on the micro level, from individuals and local communities. For these reasons, the
activities that stimulate trust building processes on the micro level are important. Volunteerism, or, in the spirit of
Serbian language, voluntary work, is an activity that can be formally and informally manifested. If citizens volunteer
within an organization, that is the case of formal volunteerism, that is, volunteerism within institutions. Apart from
this form of volunteering, we can also speak of informal volunteerism, when citizens act on their own, not within
institutions, with a view to providing assistance to the neighbours from their street, that is, local community.
Volunteerism is closely related to the structure of using free time. Free time can be used in different ways, but
generally speaking, there is volunteering within an institution or organization (formal participation in the activities of
a civil society institution), activities of providing assistance to family members, neighbours or friends, free of charge
(informal volunteering, that is, volunteering outside organizations) and/or activities of socialization, that is, building
social networks through visiting friends or relatives, time spent with others on various occasions, as well as other
social activities.
In works addressing development issues, the consensus is ever stronger on the issue that differences in
economic results on the individual level, local community level and national level cannot be entirely explained by
traditional inputs such as land, labour force and physical capital. There are more and more works stating that
development is not only a process of capital accumulation but a process of changes in the community organization.
There are numerous theories on development but it is evident that more and more of them are increasingly more
focused on social relations through the concept of social capital. In this brief article we shall try to establish only the
starting bases of this significant relation which we must acknowledge in order for the transition we are going through
to be effective.
Different views of social capital have some common characteristics:
• They all connect the economic, social and political spheres. They share the belief that social relations
affect economic outcomes and vice versa.

1 Contribution of the NGO »European Movement in Smederevska Palanka« for the 11th number of newsletter of the project "Promotion of Pluralism

by Strengthening NGOs and The Civil Society In Serbia" in partnership with NGO »European Perspective« from Greece as main applicant (project
B7-702/2001/0872, European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, European Commission). More information about project on the web site
http://www.hhdn.org.yu
Prepared by Milan Milošević, Master of Systemology and Logistics
 EUROPEAN MOVEMENT IN SMEDEREVSKA PALANKA
• They are all focused on the relations among economic factors and on the manners in which formal
as well as informal organizing of these factors affects the effectiveness of economic activities.
• They all include the assertion that desirable social relations and institutions have a positive effect
on development. Since individuals cannot single out these aspects of their activities, there is a tendency of
not investing enough in social capital development, which is an opportunity for public support to the
activities that lead towards social capital development.
• They all recognize the existence of potential dangers because similar social relations can have
negative effects as well. The outcome depends on the nature of relations (horizontal connecting as
opposed to vertical connecting), the existing norms and values in the community and a broader legal and
political context.
From the perspective of social capital development, but without neglecting other forms, formal volunteering is
especially significant in different organizations that do not have to be purely volunteer ones but are ready to accept
volunteers for the purpose of a successful realization of certain activities relevant to local community. Within these
activities, volunteers get an additional opportunity to expand their network of contacts and develop and improve
their social skills through meeting various community members in various social contexts. The developed social
skills, in situations which are not burdened by various requests related to the working routine, can afterwards be
successfully used precisely in the situations that include the working routine. Volunteer activities usually imply
engagement and contacts in the areas of our chief interests and in need of additional work and the economic
support (whether this is justified or not) does not exist or is insufficient (providing assistance in socio-humanitarian
domain, in culture, work with children and the young, etc.).
It is in these situations that volunteers get the opportunity for individual promotion as useful community
members, as well as the opportunity for social promotion within the network of community members active in that
and related areas.
Serbia has a tradition of volunteerism both on the formal and informal levels. During the years of dire crisis,
volunteering (formal and informal) was not encouraged because socially active citizens are basically critical towards
government actions. The government was building social capital within the narrow circles of the social strata loyal to
them and in other social layers they were distracting it by means of subtle techniques of the media and any other
manipulation. For this reason, non-governmental organizations, which originally require significant voluntary work in
realizing their goals in line with the problems of solving or articulating potential social and development problems,
were not very popular and their work was sanctioned in certain situations.
The new conditions of our community development require the opposite - maximal fostering of institutional and
non-institutional forms of volunteerism, as instruments for building social capital on the individual level, as well as of
activities that promote social capital and its development on the local community and national levels.
Without an adequate development of the community social capital, which begins by citizens’ voluntary work
(whether informally or formally in civil society organizations), there is no economic development or the economic
development will take much more time and be more expensive.

Sources:
o The Information Society, Volunteerism and Europe: Perspectives and Outlook. The European
Volunteer Centre, Brussels, 25 August 2003
o Gerhard Fischer, Eric Scharff, Yunwen Ye: Fostering Social Creativity by Increasing Social Capital. May
2002 Workshop, Amsterdam
o Social Capital: Presentation to the European Commission Conference on Social and Human Capital in
the Knowledge Society. Brussels, 28th-29th October 2002
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Social Capital And Civil Society