Volunteer service sees lacklustre growth



KATHMANDU, AUG 25 -
Twenty-two-year-old Sajita Pariyar has been working as a volunteer in Gorkha under the National Development Volunteer Service (NDVS) programme since March last year. A trained auxiliary nurse and midwife and a permanent resident of Gorkha, Pariyar decided to apply for the NDVS programme because she was free and unemployed and it was better to do something than sit idle.

Pariyar is one of the 8,800 volunteers NDVS has so far sent all over the country since its formation in March 2000 as one of the National Planning Commission (NPC) programmes, following the UN General Assembly decision to mark 2001 as the international year of volunteers. When the programme began 13 years ago in a pilot form, it had 220 volunteers in 20 districts.

Now, according to Shiva Raj Chaulagain, director of NDVS, the public organisation sends around 700 volunteers every second year to 75 districts. In the 13-year period, the programme budget has also increased from Rs 5 million to Rs 118.5 million.

These figures, unfortunately, do not imply a significant growth of the programme. Despite its ambitious objectives, relative popularity and obvious benefits, NDVS has never been the government’s priority.

Compared to the National Development (NDS), a voluntary service made mandatory to Masters students in Tribhuwan University in the late 1970s, the budget allocated to its offshoot, the NDVS, is meagre.

According to Volunteerism in Nepal, a book published by the NPC and UN Volunteers Nepal in 2002, NDS was awarded more than Rs 7 million for the year 1977-1978. Taking into account inflation over the last 35 years, Rs 7 million then is worth much more than Rs 118.5 million allocated to NDVS at the moment.

Chaulagain, more than anything else, blames this budget constraint for the lacklustre growth of NDVS. “The rise has been slower than expected for us because the budget determines the scale of the programme,” he says.

The lustreless growth is also evinced by the fact that few people have heard about the programme. Pariyar had not heard of it until the year she applied. Neither had 28-year-old Rabi Acharya, currently volunteering in Morang. According to Chaulagain, this is so because NDVS is focused solely on technical volunteerism since late 2010.

Still, NDVS is popular among youths who have heard of it. According to the NDVS website, in January 2012, 6,800 applications were received for 664 seats, a high acceptance rate of 9.76 percent.

One of the reasons for the popularity of the programme among the youths is the generation of short-term employment, with an attractive wage.

Although the volunteer is initially recruited for only six months, the tenure can be extended for up to two years, and most volunteers end up serving for the maximum period allowed. And based on the centre of service and education qualification, a volunteer receives around Rs 8,500 to Rs 16,000 a month.

For instance, Pariyar, who has been working as an NDVS volunteer for almost one-and-a-half years now, receives a monthly stipend of Rs 9,500, almost double the amount she was making at Miteri Hospital or at a polyclinic in Kathmandu before she left for Gorkha.

The other reason is that the programme, like every other volunteering opportunity, gives an individual a chance to get real-world experience and boost her resume.

“No organisation, NGO or INGO, will take a newcomer in. NDVS provides a great opportunity for a beginner to gather some valuable experience,” says Chaulagain.

Acharya, with a Bachelor’s in Science degree in agriculture from Rampur Agriculture Campus, agrees. He has never worked prior to the volunteer service in Biratnagar. “We don’t get a job right after graduation. This has helped me develop a practical knowledge of my area of study, which will undoubtedly be useful for future employment,” says Acharya.

The benefits, however, are mutual. NDVS has not recently analysed the costs and benefits of the programme, but Chaulagain says the return is much higher than what the organisation would have received from the deployment of a public official.

The high return could also be gauged from the yields of the NDS programme. According to Volunteerism in Nepal, an analysis of the mobilisation of 14 students in Bajhang in 1976-77 found the return to be four times higher than the cost incurred at Rs 100,000.

Despite keeping NDVS in the low-priority list, the government does realise the contribution of volunteers in the country’s growth.

In its NDVS Reform Recommendation Report published in September 2012, the Commission plans to broaden the programme’s horizons. It plans to make NDVS a focal organisation for everything related to volunteerism in the country, including the creation and management of a national database on all national and international volunteers.

“A draft policy to that effect has already been formulated. We plan to have it endorsed before Dashain,” says Chaulagain.

If expanded, NDVS could play a significant role in curtailing youth unemployment, say Pariyar and Acharya.


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