Humanitarian organizations cannot be used as substitutes to alleviate the injustices that must be mended in their structures. Volunteers have to recognize all the good, just and efficient that has been done so far in the fields of beneficence, solidarity, justice and charity. Many movements have sown amazing examples in history of self-sacrifice and have created work that evidence exemplarity in their behavior.
The work of social volunteers cannot be a “trend” to fill up for the lack of commitment from other political, social or religious instances, nor to cover up for mistakes, for injustice and the rich people’s exploitation over the poor and the North’s economic interests over those of the impoverished peoples of the South.
Social volunteering is a sociological phenomenon that emerged from a demand against any form of discrimination and marginalization for racial, sexual, religious, cultural, economic, age or political reasons. All this was born in the need to become part of a solidarity project within a humanitarian organization with contrasted experience.
It’s possible to commit oneself after the testimony of common people who know how to scratch a few hours of their own time to serve others, especially the ones with the most needs here, “right around the corner,” in our own surroundings.
Humanitarian associations that have assumed their responsibility in the service to the weakest cannot become the main actor in social action, but rather a cooperating component in this duty that belongs to us all. A “providential” State with the intention of regulating everything is not welcome either. It is not imaginable either to have a utopian society that walks outside of the boundaries of public institutions with pressure groups that distort the social order desired by citizens.
There are organizations that develop projects sustained by social volunteers who wish to work with those who need the most help: from the elderly to children, from the dying sick to prisoners to immigrants, from drug addicts to people with AIDS, from the disabled to those that society excludes in any way.
These volunteers search for an authentic solidarity that works for justice and concord, with an attitude of gratitude, without looking for getting anything back or imposing any development model or any way of life that might root people out of their traditions and their identity. It is the humane person, in its community and its atmosphere, which drives him to serve his surroundings in its personal, authentic, integral and balanced development.

José Carlos García Fajardo
Profesor of Contemporary Social and Political Thought. CCS Director
Translated by Carlos Miguélez
fajardoccs@solidarios.org.es