The Malta Council for the Voluntary Sector in its capacity as the national coordinator of the European Year of Volunteering, partnered by the Malta Chamber of Commerce, is organising a conference themed Employee Supported Volunteering, which is partly funded by the European Commission.

The conference aims to bring together the business community and the voluntary sector in a market place. The concept of the market place is to have the business community discussing with the voluntary sectors ways of cooperation between the two players as part of the private sector’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The concept aims to move away from the traditional voluntary work of offering services like painting, cleaning and the traditional Christmas bazaar but to offer their professional services, which are much needed by the voluntary sector. This concept is already happening with some larger corporate entities and is being promoted at European levels.

The keynote speaker for the conference is the international speaker Dr Elena Korf from the International Business Leaders Forum, with her opening speech Understanding Employee Volunteering. Dr Korf will also close the conference with her conclusions on The way forward.

Also under the microscope are the topics of: understanding corporate volunteering; the benefits of corporate volunteering – private sector/private sector employees; main approaches and models of corporate volunteering; how to set up corporate volunteering schemes and; success stories and case studies

Monique Falzon from SOS Malta will also present the research findings from the EPSEV project Empowering Private Sector Employees through Volunteering (EPSEV).

The conference will also give space to two corporate organisations already offering CSR and to two voluntary organisations to offer their experiences of good practices in their respective fields and to identify the beneficial aspect of CSR to both parties.

The conference is open to voluntary organisations, local councils, and human resources managers from the private sector.

Full details can be downloaded from the MCVS website www.maltacvs.com