Volunteer Centres Ireland

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Volunteer Centres Ireland is the national body with responsibility for promoting and developing volunteering in Ireland both locally and nationally. VCI is a membership organisation, established by volunteer centres to co-operate and network on any issue relating to volunteer centres and volunteering in Ireland. VCI's work is funded and approved by by the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.


Contents

[edit] History

Volunteer Centres Ireland (VCI) began in the year 2000 when some of the earliest volunteer centres in Ireland (including what is now the South Dublin County Volunteer Centre and Volunteering Ireland), came together to discuss common issues that affected them. In 2001, it was decided to formalise this grouping and Volunteer Centres Ireland was born. VCI adopted a constitution, membership criteria and agreed aims and objectives.

Since its inception, the membership of VCI had lobbied government to support a national infrastructure of volunteer centres, central to the recommendations of Tipping the Balance (2002). In January 2005, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Volunteering published its report, Volunteers and Volunteering in Ireland, in which it specifically recommended that the existing volunteering infrastructure be developed through volunteer centres and VCI . A few months later, the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs announced a package of funding measures to realise that recommendation. Core funding from the Department was extended to all the volunteer centres (previously only the South Dublin County Volunteer Centre and Volunteering Ireland had received core funding) and VCI itself received funding to employ a national development officer.

[edit] Volunteer Centres

There are now 17 VCI Member Volunteer Centres across the Republic of Ireland.


• Carlow Volunteer Centre

• Cork Volunteer Centre

• Donegal Volunteer Centre

• Drogheda Volunteer Centre

• Dublin City South Volunteer Centre

• Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Volunteer Centre (in development)

• Fingal Volunteer Centre

• Galway Volunteer Centre

• Kerry Volunteer Centre

• Kildare Volunteer Centre

• Longford Volunteer Office

• Mayo Volunteer Centre

• Sligo Volunteer Centre

• South Dublin County Volunteer Centre

• South Tipperary Volunteer Centre

• Westmeath Volunteer Centre

• Wicklow Volunteer Centre

[edit] Give It A Swirl Day

In September 2007, Volunteer Centres Ireland launched the first annual national day of volunteering, Give it a Swirl Day!

The first annual national day of volunteering took place on Wednesday, 26th September 2007. Working in cooperation with member volunteer centres and a myriad of other voluntary organisations, County and City Councils, Tidy Towns groups, primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, businesses, residents groups, youth groups, as well as families and individual volunteers.

[edit] External links

[edit] Media reports

[edit] References

"Tipping the Balance": Report and Recommendations to Government on Supporting and Developing Volunteering in Ireland (01 October 2002)