Government gives vollies a helping hand

15 May 2008 | Minister for Fair Trading, Youth and Volunteering, the Hon Linda Burney

The Iemma Government has given volunteers strong support since it announced its new portfolio of volunteering eight months ago, Minister for Volunteering Linda Burney said during National Volunteer Week.

 "Our volunteering sector is vast and has an immense scope of activities," Ms Burney said.

"I was appointed Minister with the aim of establishing a framework to assist NSW's 330,000 volunteering organisations and their 1.4 million community volunteers.

"The Government, by setting up the portfolio, acknowledges the vital contribution of volunteers in making our cities, towns and communities harmonious and cohesive places to live.

"Our contribution is to link small, local volunteer-run organisations with useful, practical resources and to make it easier for people to volunteer.

"I am pleased the Rudd Government's 2008 Budget also provides assistance to volunteering by introducing the critical capacity to cover volunteer petrol costs and allocating additional funding to regional volunteer resource centres.

"This means volunteers will have help covering fuel costs incurred through their community work. This is a major cost, especially for volunteers in country NSW.

"Diversifying the volunteer workforce and increasing participation of people from non-English speaking backgrounds in formal volunteering is one of our aims. In March I hosted the Diversity and the Volunteer Workforce forum attended by representatives from 100 key organisations."

The Iemma Government will soon launch its first web portal for volunteering. The new website will help raise awareness of volunteering and engage potential volunteers. It will also provide practical resources for the thousands of small to medium volunteer organisations.

Other initiatives include an operations manual for small to medium not-for-profit organisations, a best practice literature review, a community greening project in a public housing estate and, through the Department of Education and Training, a school community service program.

"I am encouraging corporate volunteering among public sector employees and will be announcing the first public service workplace volunteering pilot later this year."

Earlier this week Ms Burney launched the 2008 NSW Volunteer of the Year Award. Information and nomination forms can be downloaded from The Centre for Volunteering website < a href="http://www.nswvolunteerawards.com" target="_blank">www.volunteering.com.au.

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Phyllis Sakinofsky
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