IVCO 2021, The World’s Biggest Annual Conference for Volunteering for Development Sector Launches Today with a Focus on Inclusion and Equality
Today Forum is launching IVCO 2021, the world’s biggest annual conference for volunteering for development practitioners, institutional actors, and researchers. This year’s conference will be hosted online by ActionAid Hellas, Greece, on the theme of ‘Inclusive Volunteering for Global Equality’ from 16 to 20 October 2021.
During the 5-day event, 80 thought-leading speakers from across the globe will explore the questions of how volunteering can embrace all forms of diversity, and how it can ensure that no one is left behind. ‘IVCO 2021, through its overarching theme ‘Inclusive Volunteering for Global Equality, aims to broaden and deepen this discourse by inviting researchers, practitioners, and volunteers to exchange best practices, discuss the barriers that prevent inclusive volunteering on the side of institutions, societies, organisations, and volunteers, and to recommend solutions.’, said Gerasimos Kouvaras, Country Director of ActionAid Hellas and Member of the Forum Board. ‘The conference will focus on three burning issues: decolonisation, digitalisation, and directionality of volunteering – seen through the programmatic, organisational, methodological, and policy making lenses, amongst others.’ he added.
IVCO 2021 brings together over 250 participants from around the world, including volunteers, leaders and staff of volunteer-involving organisations as well as researchers, government officials and executives from the private sector in a unique dialogue focusing on the challenges and opportunities currently facing volunteering for development.
James O’Brien, Executive Director of the International Forum for Volunteering in Development said:
‘As we all try to find our ways in the new pandemic reality, with so many concurrent crises unequally affecting countries and communities, decolonising the ways we study and practice volunteering has never been so relevant. There is an urgent need to talk about structural racism, locally and globally, and adopt an intersectional perspective geared towards transformative justice in every part of society, including volunteering’. O’Brien continued: ‘The Black Lives Matter movement and conversations on decolonising aid and development pose fundamental questions for organisations that work with volunteers. At IVCO 2021 we will be exploring these questions and finding ways to be more responsible and more impactful in our work with volunteers.’
To assist with the above, at the IVCO 2021 conference Forum will be launching the second edition of the Global Volunteering Standard, alongside a state-of-the-art online Global Volunteering Standard Platform with a self-assessment tool and the largest global library of good practice resources for organisations that work in the volunteering for development space. These set out good practice in designing and delivering projects, duty of care, volunteer management and measuring impact, and will be available on Forum’s website.
ENDS
NOTES TO THE EDITOR
About IVCO: Forum’s annual conference of International Volunteer Cooperation Organisations (IVCO) brings together leaders of international volunteering agencies from around the globe in a unique dialogue focusing on the challenges and opportunities currently facing volunteering for development – longstanding, and newly emerging. IVCO allows Forum members to learn, exchange ideas and practice innovation, build supportive peer networks, and participate in shaping sectoral policy and advocacy initiatives.
IVCO 2021 will be hosted by ActionAid Hellas on the theme Inclusive Volunteering for Global Equality, from 16 to 20 October 2021. It will be held online and will include the first Virtual Global Volunteering Fair and an Active Citizens International Photo Salon.
About Forum: The International Forum for Volunteering in Development (Forum) is the most significant global network of Volunteering for Development organisations. Forum exists to share information, develop good practice and enhance cooperation across the volunteering for development sector. It promotes the value of volunteering through policy engagement, mutual learning and by sharing innovative and good practices. Forum is a ‘virtual’ network, with a global membership that includes a range of organisations involved in international development, including non-government and state organisations.
About ActionAid Hellas (The host of IVCO 2021) is an affiliate of ActionAid Federation, was established in 1998. Since then, we have been promoting solidarity by supporting the empowerment of marginalized communities all over the world through child sponsorship, fighting injustice with public campaigns, educating the next generation through our Global Citizenship Education Centre and the international student campaign ‘Global Action Week for Education,’ challenging stereotypes, and nurturing global volunteering.