ADP – ZID’s annual volunteerism awards

ADP – ZID as a National Volunteer Service in cooperation with the Petrović Njegoš Foundation for 13 years in a row has rewarded annual volunteerism awards to those who have contributed to the affirmation, promotion and development of volunteerism, and especially to those leaded by their own example, initiated joint action for the whole society.
The Executive Director of ADP – ZID, Sandra Rakocevic said what volunteering is and that is very important to identify it as a philanthropy. In order to be sure of what volunteering is, it must satisfy five yeses: the first is to be organized, the second is to be voluntary, the third is not to be for the purposes of individuals but to be for the purpose of the whole community, fourth is that you do not get money or give money for volunteering and fifth is to invest your potential, which means your knowledge and skills.
‘’What keeps us doing this is all the results that we have achieved with you throughout these years. We have been working on the development of volunteering policy in Montenegro for the last 19 years’’ said Rakocevic.
‘’The government has adopted an initiative to change the law so that volunteering will no longer be recognized as work, which is really great because so far volunteering has been equated with work. Volunteerism could be done as an internship which was tremendous volunteering time and it was recognized as a huge space for abusive development of the black labor market’’ Rakocevic said.
The Annual Volunteerism Award is given to increase the visibility of contributions, to develop the concept and to promote the value of volunteering. The award may be given to an individual, a civil society organization, a company, a media house or an institution that, through their efforts, have contributed to the development of volunteerism in Montenegro.
This year we had to make a difficult choice because out of 43 submitted nominations, we were able to choose only two, award for a Volunteer of the Year and the Annual Volunteerism Award. However, we also want to mention those who have been shortlisted for the annual volunteerism awards, such as the Ray of Hope from Pljevlja and the Animator entertainers from Podgorica.
The NGO Parents of Children with Developmental Disabilities ‘Ray of Hope’ visits more than 20 volunteers who devote their free time to children each day, hanging out with them, teaching and learning from them. Ray of Hope had many activities this year, and we will mention just a few, such as celebrating a purple day – International Support Day for people with epilepsy, celebrating World Day for People with Autism, and then, on the occasion of International Day, they prepared an appropriate program, a presentation about family and family relationships, as well as International Earth Day participating in the action “My Check Your Smile” and many others, according to ADP-ZID.
The entertainers are devoting their free time to children and parents located in the departments of hematology of the Children’s Hospital of the Clinical Hospital Center of Montenegro. In addition, they actively work on volunteering and raising awareness of volunteering, volunteer work, and participate in fundraising campaigns and more.
The civic activism shown by the Lipljen sports Fishing Club from Pljevlja showed undoubted importance of preservation of Pljevlja’s rivers, fish stock and ecology to the whole community. The motives for their activism for the catastrophe of fish seizure that occurred on July 6 this year on the Vežnica and Ćehotina rivers by the Pljevlja Thermal Power Plant, is reason why they were awarded the annual volunteerism award. The award is presented to Vaso Knezevic in front of the Lipnje sports fishing club.
The winner of the second category award for volunteer of the year is Ljubica Nikolic. An award was presented to the representative of The Women of Bar, which contributes to the humanitarian development of national cuisines. A special award was given to a civic activist from the Source of Life organization.

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