26 February 2004

Dublin: Volunteering Ireland, the largest volunteering centre in Ireland, launches the first Irish handbook on recuiting volunteers, "Opportunity knocks: opening doors for volunteers with additional support needs",with Senator Feargal Quinn in Dublin.

Opportunity knocks breaks stereotypes about who can volunteer. It argues that those traditionally perceived as beneficiaries or those being "helped" can actually be the "helpers" themselves. It is aimed providing volunteer-involving organizations with advice and guidelines on how to be more inclusive in recruiting volunteers.

Volunteering Ireland believes that all citizens should have access to the same rights and civic responsibilities and that volunteering activities should be accesible to everybody, saying that "volunteering is part of the glue that holds society together, and makes it a better place. What this book brings home to is that volunteering should be open to all those who wish to help and that some of those who we might have thought wouldn't be able to help are in fact well able and indeed anxious to participate".

Opportunity knocks is published by Volunteering Ireland with support from the Vodafone Group Foundation assisted also by the National Committee on Volunteering and Barclays.

Volunteering Ireland was set up in 1997 to promote, support and facilitate voluntary action of all kinds. Volunteering Ireland will provide access to interviews and photographs of volunteers with additional support needs who volunteered with organisations in the Dublin area.