While International Volunteer Day focuses on celebrating the contribution of volunteers, Volunteer Awareness Week looks to the year ahead and aims to encourage greater participation in volunteering.

The incentive for having an Awareness Week came from New Zealand’s volunteer centres in the 1980s and was picked up as a national event in the 1990s. Volunteer Awareness Week is a great opportunity to highlight the wide range of volunteering roles and encourage first-timers to give volunteering a go.

Volunteering New Zealand, the Department of Internal Affairs and the Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector are working collaboratively to build a comprehensive picture of activities planned for the week. In past years, the week’s activities have included MPs getting involved in community volunteering, ‘Mayoral Challenges’, and various award ceremonies recognising the contribution of existing volunteers.

A list of known activities for 2006 will be published on www.volunteeringnz.org.nz in early March. If you have activities planned for Volunteer Awareness Week, we’d love to hear about them – post your event on this events calendar or e-mail details of your activity to: ocvs@msd.govt.nz.

Volunteering New Zealand, the Department of Internal Affairs and the

Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector