Subject: AUT: bush's speech and volunteerism
Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 17:28:25 -0500



A couple things-
Can folks from outside the US tell me something about what, if any, 
national/social service plans the governments in your respective homes 
operate? I'm under the impression that many countries require military or 
social service for some time period. Is this true?
I'm currently getting my employment as a member of the Americorps, as a 
VISTA (Volunteer In Service To America), which means I work  at  some 
non-profit agency and I'm paid by the government a monthly stipend set at 
the poverty level of the community I live in. I'm very interested in the 
role these types of programs play/can play in maintaining and shaping 
society.
I know a lot of VISTAs are very radical and being a VISTA allows us contact 
with each other. At the same time, many VISTAs are afraid of repercussions 
and so try to toe the line at work as much as possible. The work environment 
varies from placement to placement. Often the work environments allow 
opportunities for not working while on the job. At the same time, the work 
will sometime demand a greater than 40 hour/week commitment and will often 
be irregular hours. In fact, when one signs up to be a VISTA one agrees to 
be 'on duty 24hrs a day 7days a week' (as well as an oath of loyalty...)
the perks are mostly that it allows one to work in a job otherwise 
unavailable, job experience, and provides money towards either further 
school or student loan debts.

The reason I raise this is because in Bush's new plan the program which runs 
the Americorps will now be part of the new USA Freedom Corps, which will run 
the Americorps (attempts at poverty reduction or helping people 'cope' with 
poverty), the Peace Corps (including the new Crisis Corps, a 'rapid response 
team' of current and past volunteers who can be sent to different areas of 
the world that they're familiar with for various crises such as rebuilding 
Afghanistan) and the new Citizen Corps (which is charged with Homeland 
Security, including but not limited to emergency medical/disaster/terrorism 
response teams, volunteer to assist police, and setting up neighborhood 
watch and early detection anti-terrorism programs.) The gov't is aiming to 
have a vastly increased and coordinated pool of un- and low-paid volunteers 
to do social service and policing function. I think this may be an important 
development to keep apprised of.  I'm not aware of any close analyses of 
these types of programs in the US, are there any over the role of these 
programs in other countries?
More info can be found on the website www.americorps.org


_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com



     --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---