Abstract:

Volunteering in Canada is governed by the legislation – the Code in Partnership with the Canadian Administration of Volunteer Resources (CAVR). Canadian traditions and experience with governing and providing of volunteer activities as well as the perception and importance of volunteering could be beneficial for Europe and Slovakia. Volunteering could become a tool of a stronger participation of seniors at the community activities and life together with the younger generation. It is important for the mutual education and the improvement of life of both generations. The result of co-operation of younger and older people in volunteer activities could lead to the stronger social capital in a community, improvement of quality of life of seniors and the implementation of precious skills and knowledge of seniors for the community development.

Volunteering is based on social participation and co-operation of the society motivated by altruistic behavior. Individuals seek to fulfill such goals as to be fully satisfied, recognized, involved in the supportive and helpful activities for the other individuals in need, for community, involved in the creation of social networks and contacts. The contribution’s goal is to explain and analyze the differences of approaches to the motivation of seniors willing to participate at volunteer activities between two continents and two countries of those continents, North America (Canada) and Europe (Slovakia). Seniors are important source of wisdom and experience in the volunteer activities; however there exist obstacles which might hinder the participation of seniors at volunteer activities. Seniors could be on both sides of the supply-demand structure of volunteer activities, which means they could be providers of volunteer activities as well as customers of volunteering. Volunteering is a source of social capital and community development. Canada belongs to one of the most experienced countries in volunteer activities, which are governed by the legislation CAVR (Code in partnership with the Canadian Administrators of Volunteer Resources (CAVR) enabling the volunteer organizations and NGOs to become legally protected and governed. The aim of the study is to discuss the importance of volunteering for the society and define main principles, which have been implemented in the European Union and compare them to those in North America, especially in Canada with the focus at the volunteer activities and their perception among different social groups of volunteers and predominately shedding light at the specific age group – seniors.

In order to demonstrate and express the results of the participation of seniors of Canada and Slovakia, secondary research methods have been implemented in the research, especially a thorough content analysis of existing legislation dealing with volunteering activities in Canada and the European Union, academic literature sources and websites dealing with the volunteering content and existing research of motivation online. There have been also used materials collected from the former research publication activities of the author. Due to the fact that the existing statistical data have been collected from the secondary sources existing online (Stat Canada), there is not created full picture on the state of volunteering in Canada, but it gives information only on specific factors in volunteer activities.

Keywords:

Volunteering of seniors, mutual education exchange, quality of life, social capital, community development.