On December 1, 2022, in Astana (Kazakhstan) in the Russian House, Elmira Shcherbakova, Deputy Head of the General Secretariat of the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly, President of the “Peace and Harmony” Social Initiatives Foundation, held a foresight session dedicated to volunteering as part of the Geneva Readings: Volunteering as the Basis for Sustainable Development.
The foresight session was attended by 51 representatives of the V Youth Forum of Russian Compatriots, members of the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan, directors of non-profit organizations.
The participants were divided into three teams, each was given the task of creating projects on topics such as cultural and sports volunteering, corporate volunteering and regional volunteering. The teams were very creative.
The team that prepared the corporate volunteering project proposed two projects: The Wishing Tree, aimed at working with children from sponsored orphanages. The second project was aimed at the theme of ecology "Clean Game".
The culture and sports team came up with the “O – Zarnitsa” project to develop family outings.
The regional volunteering team chose the border region. In their project, the region bordering Russia offered a system of cultural collaborations.
Each project was made an analysis in terms of the effectiveness of the teams' actions and the effectiveness of volunteering by the speaker Elmira Shcherbakova. There was also a general problem of interaction with authorities. The participants of the foresight session, especially those from the border regions, thanked the organizers for the opportunity to consider urgent issues in practice and receive qualified assistance.
Alexei Borisov, Vice President of the World Federation of United Nations Associations, First Deputy Chairman of the Russian United Nations Association; Irina Zhukova, Chairman of the Union of the National Council of Corporate Volunteering; Vladimir Vitchenko, Chairman of the Youth Council of the KSORS RK address to young compatriots, who spoke about the global prospects for volunteering and its impact on the development of the state and society, with a welcoming speech online. They noted that the Presidents of Kazakhstan and Russia held talks and signed a declaration on the occasion of 30 years of establishing diplomatic relations between our countries at the XVIII Forum of Interregional Cooperation. Now the task is to carry out mutually beneficial cooperation in youth policy to strengthen friendship between our countries and develop further partnerships.
The participants of the event came to a unanimous opinion on the need to hold the next foresight session, this time including representatives of the authorities, what could help develop mechanisms and tools for interaction between the authorities and charitable organizations based on volunteering.