Volunteering: Principles and Practice

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

Teaching Methods

Theoretical classes on subjects, using appropriate resources. Theoretical concepts will be illustrated with practical examples and case studies. Guests experienced in the different aspects of volunteering (Community solidarity/social action organizations, NGOs, national/international) will teach some theoretical classes. Students from previous years will be invited to share concrete experiences, promoting reflection on difficulties and ways to overcome them.

Voluntary actions will be carried out on the ground, with the target populations identified, under tutorial guidance.

Learning Outcomes

The objectives are:

To promote the social and humanist culture of future doctors.

Provide the students with contact with people in situations of physical and emotional fragility, developing empathy and the ability to care, also promoting the insertion of those people in society.

Guide the student in raising awareness of their role in society, stimulating them to becoming more socially responsible.

To contribute to a more humane medicine, centered on the person and attentive to social problems.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

I- Being a Volunteer: legal framework and general issues

• The concept(s) of Volunteering;

• Bases of the legal framework of Volunteering in Portugal and in the World; Universal Declaration on Volunteering;

• Types of Volunteering: definitions/characteristics/practices;

• University Volunteering: definitions/characteristics/presentation of practices

• Ethics in the practice of volunteering;

• The process of building a personal volunteer project: motivations, attitudes and behaviors

  Planning and organization of volunteering.

  New domains: online volunteering, corporate volunteering, volunteer tourism

II - Being a University Volunteer: development of transversal skills

•Communication and Interpersonal Relationship;

• Emotional Management;

• Negotiation and Conflict Management

III - Participation in volunteering projects/programs and Tutoring for monitoring the practice of volunteering.

Head Lecturer(s)

Marilia Assunção Rodrigues Ferreira Dourado

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Other: 100.0%

Bibliography

2018 STATE OF THE WORLD’S VOLUNTEERISM REPORT: THE THREAD THAT BINDS

MÉDICOS DEL MUNDO (2002), Manual de Gestión del Voluntariado, Madrid, MTAS (disponível online)

United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme (2021). 2022 State of the World’s Volunteerism Report. Building equal and inclusive societies. Bonn

Review - The Politics of Compassion https://www.e-ir.info/2020/02/26/review-the-politics-of-compassion/

The Transformative Potential of Compassion at Work , Jane E. Dutton et al, in: New Designs for Transformative Cooperation. D. Cooperrider, R. Fry and S. Piderit, (Eds.), Stanford University Press.