The Power of the Volunteer
CAMPAIGN
An international event organised by the Erasmus European programme in collaboration with Turkish social organisations to promote volunteering across Europe.
CHALLENGE
Every year the Erasmus programme allows hundreds of people of all ages, concerned about social and environmental issues, to travel across Europe in order to join their energy to find solutions. This is called volunteering and it is based on generosity, respect and reciprocity.
Every year the Erasmus programme allows hundreds of people of all ages, concerned about social and environmental issues, to travel across Europe in order to join their energy to find solutions. This is called volunteering and it is based on generosity, respect and reciprocity.
Meanwhile, with the mass unemployment crisis that started in 2008 and the increasing scarcity of work opportunities going on since then, many people are brought to undersell their skills and time. In this context, the frontier between volunteering and free work got blurred.
The purpose of "The Power of the Volunteer" event was to raise awareness of this situation in the Erasmus associations community. It was also to remember the original meaning of volunteering, to communicate about its structural role in our society, and to find ways to protect the status of volunteer.
SOLUTION
With this campaign, I wanted to embrace the purpose of the event to focus on the figure of the volunteer. I aimed to open the conversation ahead of the event itself by breaking down the role and experience of a volunteer into four concepts: Discovering, Learning, Exchanging and Creating. Each concept is represented by an illustration and a short text. They have been inspired by various theories about knowledge economy, brain plasticity and optimistic nihilism.
With this campaign, I wanted to embrace the purpose of the event to focus on the figure of the volunteer. I aimed to open the conversation ahead of the event itself by breaking down the role and experience of a volunteer into four concepts: Discovering, Learning, Exchanging and Creating. Each concept is represented by an illustration and a short text. They have been inspired by various theories about knowledge economy, brain plasticity and optimistic nihilism.
By the use of “we”, the text is willingly blurry about whom we are talking about, and all anecdotal elements have been removed from the illustrations. This is to allow a personal and subjective appropriation of the concepts by the reader. The characters are reduced to their most essential shapes to communicate the idea of humanity rather than representing humans. They float in a starry space which stands as only context. This way I intended to isolate the four concepts from any other idea to show they have a value for themselves and out of any goal.
The implicit idea of this campaign is that we can all be volunteers and we should all want to be. Rather than simply describing an activity or a role in a project, volunteering is a life stance. It is a way of approaching the world with selfless interest and benevolence. It involves courage and initiative. Most importantly, volunteering means putting your values in acts. This is why it is a precious concept to all societies and why its meaning must be protected. Which is the very purpose of this campaign.
