When the volunteer does not want to volunteer any more

With the Covid-19 crisis stretching into months now, there is hardly any section of society that can claim to be untouched by the effects of this unfolding tragedy. Volunteers who made up the first wall of defence when the crisis began are among those now seeking relief. As it has with doctors, nurses and the medical safety workforce, the crisis has tested the limits of scores of volunteers who had taken the first tentative steps in April to become frontline corona warriors.

Recently, when our team tried to elicit a conversation with a group of prospective volunteers in East Bengaluru, the reactions made us comprehend how ill-equipped we are in dealing with the tragedies facing frontline warriors. Discussions on the urgent need to re-focus attention to the escalating medical and societal effects of the Covid-19 crisis and the role of volunteers in obtaining firsthand information from within society were met with one stoic but direct question. “How much will we be paid?” followed by, “Is it a regular job?” and then painfully the third query, “We do not have jobs. Can we be assisted with jobs?”

The volunteer is tired. The individual risked his/her life and safety in a scenario with several unknowns and jumped into the field when the first lockdown was announced. The individual went door to door, distributing masks and passionately imploring people to maintain physical distancing in April. Volunteers pooled their meagre resources together and distributed rations to the needy in May. Some of them were recognised by larger partners, the government, or donor agencies, and were involved in the screening and tracing of Covid-19 positive cases in June and July. The volunteer did yeoman service in the fight against coronavirus. But the volunteer is now tired. Several of them have been rendered or remained jobless in the past months. For those working presently, payment is woeful, and many feel that their present condition is no different from that of the victims of the migrant crisis in the now distant month of May.

The volunteer is irritable, and an underlying feeling is that the individual does not feel appreciated. Neither by the government, nor by one’s local community and if not for their underlying passion, they would not even have attended the meeting. They feel that they are an invisible face of this fight and no one has stepped back and stopped for a moment to appreciate them. The bucket of passion that filled their energy levels have now depleted and all they want is the safety of a real job.

This brings us to a strange conclusion. Perhaps an aberration, but a majority of the prospective volunteers we meet regularly are from low-income communities. There are maids who are juggling working in up to three houses in a day, there are salaried employees who come together with their ward members every evening to discuss matters of local and national importance, there are college students who believe in volunteering as a higher cause. However, across the larger tapestry, most volunteers come from simple backgrounds and aspire to fight the threat of the coronavirus but are being pulled back by their family and financial commitments.

Tellingly, John says, as jobs have only just begun opening up, most people are scrambling to strive for whatever is on offer. People across the locality are travelling far or engaging in opportunities which would be scoffed at earlier. There is thus a complete loss of time management and many people are unable to afford a spare moment for community service or volunteerism. He mentioned that the overall pool of volunteers was already minuscule and now, with the lack of time in the hands of most residents, people would rather service their family needs than worry about the community.

What is worth considering amid the all-pervasive corona crisis is the stigma and fear attached with the disease. Though personal safety measures are faltering across large parts of the city with mask-wearing decreasing, a parallel drama unfolds every day with the attrition rate of volunteers increasing. Whether out of fear or out of stigma, the young inexplicably drop out, perhaps pushing the spirit of volunteerism away from their systems, maybe never to allow it to return again.

Not that the spirit has died. Farzana, who used to work in Benson Town, or Nishath, who is sitting at home with her college closed, have observed the work of civil society organisations in East Bengaluru and have taken up volunteerism with a fiery zeal. The empowerment they experience in contributing towards society and discovering themselves in the process is a sign that the spirit of volunteerism has a timeless quality about it. They are the new volunteers who will fight the threat of the virus and, hopefully, win.

Emergencies and crises evoke far-reaching emotions in humankind and time and again, we have seen volunteers stepping up to save the unfortunate tsunami-struck victim or helping an injured stuck beneath a fallen building. However, in an experience as prolonged as the present crisis with few parallels in modern post-war history, the idea of volunteerism is up for change. As NGOs and agencies search for people who can spare their time to help the needy, perhaps it would be wise to spare a thought for these selfless people and consider providing material assistance to them as well, so that they can tide safely over the tough times along with the rest of us.

(The writer is faculty at Azim Premji University)