This
Month's Hot Topic
Print Version
Foreword
by Andy Fryar (OzVPM)
This
month marks the hosting of the Beijing Olympic games
- and the largest Olympic Games volunteer program
ever formed. Here at OzVPM we had planned to write
our August hot topic column on this very subject,
but as Energize President Susan J Ellis had already
done such a good job on the Energize website, we decided
to 'share' a hot topic across both sites, rather than
duplicate much of the content two spearate pieces
would have created. So thanks to Susan, this month
we will collate the comments of participants from
right around the world on this exciting subject and
share them on both our websites ...read
on!
August
2008
The Yin and Yang of China's
Olympic Volunteers
By
Energize President Susan
J Ellis
As
always, the word “volunteer” will be getting much
use in mid-August during the 2008 Olympic Games in
Beijing (http://en.beijing2008.cn/volunteers/
). There have been many stories already about
the special effort the Chinese authorities have put
into recruiting and deploying an estimated 1.7 million
people into volunteer roles. One good example of the
press coverage appeared in The Christian Science Monitor
on July 17th with the headline “For Beijing's Olympic
Volunteers, the Rules are Many” ( http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0717/p04s01-woap.html
).
The
article begins: “Ms. Cai, crisp and efficient in her
bright blue Olympic volunteer shirt, has a list of
instructions to remember.” We learn that she is staffing
one of 550 information booths where she is expected
to provide services to visitors and do a lot of smiling. But
then the article says:
But
after each interaction, out comes the red logbook
– where Cai, who didn't share her first name, makes
a careful tally of hours worked, people helped, papers
distributed, and media outlets spoken to.
This isn't your typical volunteer operation, run by
independent groups working to improve a local school
or save old homes from developers' bulldozers. This
is volunteerism Beijing 2008 style – managed rigorously
by the state and for the state.
"The
government has its own structure to organize volunteers
[and] prefers such ways rather than to let the volunteers
organize themselves," says Jia Xijin, deputy
director of the NGO Research Center at Beijing's Tsinghua
University.
Next
the reporter notes that, although China has made a
real effort to engage volunteers for the Olympics,
this does not mean that the country wants NGOs (non-governmental
organizations) to gain power. She describes the serious
application and screening process for Olympic volunteers,
and the intensive training given, not as examples
of quality volunteer management, but as indicators
of suspect “government control.”
From
our perspective of volunteer management, such descriptions
should evoke contradictory emotions.
I
certainly don’t want to defend the Chinese government
in terms of its human rights record or openness to
criticism or change. But, on the other hand, I can’t
find much wrong in their approach to volunteering
for the Olympics. To whit:
- All indications are that
the volunteers really do want to be there. Over
two million Chinese citizens applied to become volunteers,
sincerely wanting to put on the most hospitable
show for foreign guests. Most observers, including
the reporter quoted above, have not challenged the
voluntary-ness of the volunteers. As I wrote in
my Hot
Topic of October 2004 , when Betty Stallings
and I were in China on vacation, we met people already
eager to become volunteers. Conversely, contrast
the Chinese situation with what’s happening in Canada
in advance of the 2010 Winter Olympics hosted by
British Columbia. The Canadian Broadcasting Company
(CBC) ran a story in February headlined, “B.C.
Civil Servants to Be Paid to Volunteer at 2010 Olympics”
and then opened the topic up for comments
. They got them! *
- As I’ve pointed out so many
times in this space, it is simply wrong to think
that volunteering for a nonprofit organization is
completely different from volunteering with a government
agency. Even if the government in question is Chinese,
why shouldn’t citizens be involved in assuring the
success of something that will affect their whole
society (again, assuming non-coercion to help, which
was my first point)?
- How can anyone expect local
NGOs collectively to run the Olympic Games? The
scale of the event effectively requires centralization. And
why assume that local groups of volunteers would
necessarily organize the event in a less demanding
manner? Every Olympics in the recent past has developed
procedures, systems, rules, and management strategies
for coordinating thousands of volunteers. This
is hardly a new idea.
- If we accept the fact that
the Chinese government is running the Olympics –
which clearly is the case – then don’t we want them
to practice the best volunteer management? Of course
we do. They are right in wanting the best people
and in training them well. Why not ask volunteers
to record their activities? Why infer that this
has a negative reason, such as spying on the volunteer
or giving information on the visitors for political
purposes? In a world obsessed with “metrics,” it
will be interesting to see the total numbers reported
of volunteer acts in two weeks of hosting the world.
So
here’s a challenge to readers.
You’ll
probably end up watching some or a lot of the Olympics
this month. Pay attention to when and how you hear
mention of “volunteers.” Are the references positive? Do
they imply that the Chinese government is being too
stringent in its requirements for volunteers? Or
are other issues being raised?
Then,
return here and post your observations – both what
you saw/heard and what you felt while listening to
it. Maybe we can create a log of responses that will
prove useful to other reporters or even to future
organizing committees.
Let
the Games begin!
Let’s
hear your thoughts!
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