The Sunday Times - 6 November 2011

The Malta Council for the Voluntary Sector is organising a conference themed ‘Employee supported volunteering’, partly funded by the EuropeanCommission.

It is organising the conference in its capacity as the national coordinator of the European Year of Volunteering, partnered by the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry.

The conference aims to bring together representatives of the business community and the voluntary sector to discuss ways of cooperation as part of the private sector’s corporate social responsibility commitments.

The concept aims to move away from the traditional voluntary work of offering services such as painting, cleaning and organising a traditional Christmas bazaar, and towards offering much-needed professionalservices.

This concept is already happening with some larger corporate entities and is being promoted at a European level.

The key note speaker for the conference is Elena Korf, from the International Business Leaders Forum, with her opening speech entitled ‘Understanding employee volunteering’.

Dr Korf will also close the conference with her conclusions on ‘The way forward’.

Themes to be covered include understanding corporate volunteering, its benefits in the private sector and for 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’.

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

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