Caritas India has been passionately and persistently building volunteers for the past one year. Identifying and engaging volunteers have been one of the focal activities. As the new strategic year began in the year 2018, reaching out to the masses with the key strategic pillars approach have been commonly identified. Engaging stakeholders from different communities to volunteer for the development of society and creating changemakers have been the strategic focus of Caritas India. It understands volunteering as a powerful and practical way to reach out to the most marginalized sections and reduce poverty and inequality. It believes that it is only when people step forward – either as local or national citizens – the sustainable change happens. By enabling people and the communities to play a more active role in development by volunteering, the essential pre-conditions for systemic and sustainable change such as ownership, participation, empowerment, and inclusion – can be realised.

On the 27^th and 28^th of February 2020, Caritas India organised an Advanced Volunteer Management capacities in Humanitarian Action II (PEACH-2) programme at the ISHOPANTHI ASHRAM, Puri, Odisha. The PEACH-II project envisages contributing to the organizational and technical capacities of Caritas member organizations in Asia to widen their effectiveness and efficiency in humanitarian aid and volunteer management. The training was facilitated by Caritas India for its partners from Odisha & Jharkhand region. A total of 45 participants attended the training. The overall objective of the training was to inculcate an understanding of the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Humanitarian Aid discourse, inspire a culture of volunteerism and initiating volunteer mobilisation and retention policy in their own operational areas. The participants were informed on the necessities, and capacitated with the skills, to prepare them for when Caritas India requests for any humanitarian intervention in their respective areas of operation.

Sessions on volunteerism presented to the participants the history of volunteerism, the role of volunteers, their rights and obligations, and Caritas India’s history of volunteer engagement in its various programmes like DRR, Anti-Human Trafficking, Dialogue with Nature and its various administrative works. The session on disasters and humanitarian aid was a foundation course for the participants. The session brought to fore India’s vulnerability to multi-hazards, the jargons of the sector – concepts and terminologies, recurrent disasters and their scale of destruction, the institutionalised DM cycle, Humanitarian Aid and its Principles, Core Humanitarian Standards and most importantly a recognition of the main actors in a humanitarian crisis – the Communities. The participants were apprised of their crucial role in humanitarian action, with focus on their role in conducting a sound needs assessment which is vital for a successful humanitarian intervention.

Overall, the two days of training was productive and exciting for the participants as well as for the trainers themselves. The trainers had come prepared to conduct the training and the participants had carried with them their rich experience. It was a mutual learning experience. The value addition brought by the proactive participation of the trainees from diverse backgrounds was inspiring to witness. While across the globe, depressing incidents from social injustice to the ecological crisis is saturating the atmosphere with pitch-black negative energy, the enthusiasm and positivity throughout the training was uplifting and it seeded hope.