Volunteer teams have been mushrooming recently, from organized teams to spontaneously established ones. The members of the teams could be young or older people. However, a lot of teams have been dissolved as they lack good leaders.

Taking care for children at Hoa Binh Village

However, the team soon dissolved just after they organized the Mid-autumn festival to orphan children at Long Hoa Pagoda in district 7, HCM City.

Ly said that she found it really very difficult to maintain a volunteer team as all the members of the team were busy, including the head of the team.

She realized that every member needs to learn to arrange everything and spend time on the volunteer activities. However, Ly and her friends could not do that.

Similarly, Dieu Bong, Nhung nguoi ban (friends), Goodwill Vietnam, Why Not, and Uoc Mo Xanh, have also been dissolved, though they once had good activities.

The members of the teams all said that the ‘workforce’ of the teams was the key problem.

Le Trung Hai, Head of Uoc Mo Xanh (NUMX) team in HCM City, one of the oldest teams with six years of operation, related that the team was once nearly dissolved when one of the key members left the team.

“The staff proves to be the most important thing now. There are 50 volunteers now on the team, but the number is just not enough,” Hai said.

According to Hai, the old members sometimes do not have time for the team, while new members cannot take initiative in their work.

Do Hoang Ha, Head of the Am ap tinh thuong volunteer team in Hanoi, said that charity activities are done only in spare time. Meanwhile, teams’ members still have to work every day and they sometimes cannot find time for charity activities. As the teams’ members cannot devote all their time to the work, they would give up the work when they have difficulties.

“We once trained volunteers the necessary skills, like the skill of working with the disabled and working in groups, but many volunteers had to leave after they were trained,” Hai said.

Volunteer teams have been facing a lot of difficulties, including the lack of money for operation and the solidarity of members in the teams. In this case, the heads of the team play the most important role who decides the existence of the teams.

Currently, in order to exist, volunteer teams need to be very creative. Meanwhile, a lot of volunteers do not create, while they simply do the things they are told to do.

“In order to become volunteer, you should not only have the goodwill,” experts said.

Nguyen Thi Oanh, MA of Sociology, said that in order to do the work well, one should learn this, as the demand of people has become more and more complicated.

Meanwhile, volunteer teams said that they need concrete policies to support the volunteer activities.

Le Quynh