Post by account_disabled on Mar 6, 2024 5:18:53 GMT -5
It is interesting to observe how various volunteer groups have existed in Mexico for many years and continue to do their work guided by a leader who unfolds charisma and even exudes enthusiasm and keeps the volunteering united. However, when that leader changes address or leaves the volunteer group for personal or health reasons, he puts the continuity of the volunteer group at risk. A reality of the country regarding the situation of volunteering and that has been highlighted in this space, is that in Mexico individual action predominates over social action when volunteering is practiced. This means that people want to undertake community benefit actions individually: they collect clothes, recycle materials, call for toy donations, etc. to personally carry and deliver the aid to whoever you previously selected. The preliminary results of the 2012 National Solidarity and Voluntary Action Survey indicate that the physical spaces where this individual collaboration takes place are the school, the church and the community.
To give an example of this individual action, we have the Phone Number List experience of Lupita, a woman who, within the company where she works, at least two or three times a year, collects clothes from her colleagues that are in good condition to distribute them during her work days. vacations in poor communities in Chiapas, Oaxaca, Veracruz or the Federal District. It is striking that she carries out this work in this way despite the fact that the company where she collaborates has a budding corporate volunteer program and a robust foundation, but for various reasons these initiatives are not supported. When asking Lupita why she did it that way, she responded: The company's volunteers do not plan to support these initiatives, "you see... other employees gather or collaborate to buy toys to give on Three Kings' Day or Children's Day and they do it." they do on their own; "They don't support us." She also stated: “No, I prefer to do it this way because I am sure that the help reaches the people in need.” In his speech he also emphasized the satisfaction he experienced when collaborating: “People are very grateful and it feels very nice to be able to bring help to both the children and their mothers, which makes me go back to collecting help and coming back the following year.” ”. As a cultural result of privileging mistrust and lack of teamwork, in our country we live a long political tradition that makes us accustomed or familiar, some historians would say, with leaders.
Leaders who maintain or exert an influence who, upon reaching a position within the organization, do not abandon it and cling to the position, unleashing what Max Weber and other sociologists call the phenomenon of “patrimonialism”: Thus, those in need, those excluded in the community They are “my old people,” “my children,” “my poor things” who provide support and justification for individual leadership. This fact, of course together with other determinants such as the lack of teamwork, causes positive and negative results in volunteering (we are thinking of support groups as well as boards of directors and boards of trustees). Within the former, a certain stability of volunteering is guaranteed, there is discipline and a vision about where the efforts are directed. As negative aspects we have that other individual leaderships that are required for continuity are not developed; Individual decisions predominate over group decisions and the group as a whole is not professionalized to guarantee the replacement of authorities that provide continuity to the group work. That is to say, there is a lack of processes that guarantee institutionality. When I address the topic in workshops or consultancies, I like to reinforce the idea that institutionalizing does not mean thinking that individual leadership is negative and unnecessary, that it must be fought and diluted; on the contrary, it is the main source of encouragement for many people to undertake.
To give an example of this individual action, we have the Phone Number List experience of Lupita, a woman who, within the company where she works, at least two or three times a year, collects clothes from her colleagues that are in good condition to distribute them during her work days. vacations in poor communities in Chiapas, Oaxaca, Veracruz or the Federal District. It is striking that she carries out this work in this way despite the fact that the company where she collaborates has a budding corporate volunteer program and a robust foundation, but for various reasons these initiatives are not supported. When asking Lupita why she did it that way, she responded: The company's volunteers do not plan to support these initiatives, "you see... other employees gather or collaborate to buy toys to give on Three Kings' Day or Children's Day and they do it." they do on their own; "They don't support us." She also stated: “No, I prefer to do it this way because I am sure that the help reaches the people in need.” In his speech he also emphasized the satisfaction he experienced when collaborating: “People are very grateful and it feels very nice to be able to bring help to both the children and their mothers, which makes me go back to collecting help and coming back the following year.” ”. As a cultural result of privileging mistrust and lack of teamwork, in our country we live a long political tradition that makes us accustomed or familiar, some historians would say, with leaders.
Leaders who maintain or exert an influence who, upon reaching a position within the organization, do not abandon it and cling to the position, unleashing what Max Weber and other sociologists call the phenomenon of “patrimonialism”: Thus, those in need, those excluded in the community They are “my old people,” “my children,” “my poor things” who provide support and justification for individual leadership. This fact, of course together with other determinants such as the lack of teamwork, causes positive and negative results in volunteering (we are thinking of support groups as well as boards of directors and boards of trustees). Within the former, a certain stability of volunteering is guaranteed, there is discipline and a vision about where the efforts are directed. As negative aspects we have that other individual leaderships that are required for continuity are not developed; Individual decisions predominate over group decisions and the group as a whole is not professionalized to guarantee the replacement of authorities that provide continuity to the group work. That is to say, there is a lack of processes that guarantee institutionality. When I address the topic in workshops or consultancies, I like to reinforce the idea that institutionalizing does not mean thinking that individual leadership is negative and unnecessary, that it must be fought and diluted; on the contrary, it is the main source of encouragement for many people to undertake.