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AVSM History
Association of Volunteers Social Service Macao founded in 1986, AVSM was closely related to Social Welfare Bureau of Macao (SWB) at that time. SWB hosted a half-year talent training program for volunteer leaders at the beginning of 1986 in which 24 senior volunteers from 14 different institutions were trained in the hope that they would contribute to promoting the development of volunteering work.
During the training process, they not only acquired technical knowledge and serving techniques, but underwent perceptive discussion and reflection on the situation of volunteering work in Macao at that time. They found the social resources had not been used properly so that a group was in need to act as a bridge to connect and unite various serving institutions and their volunteers. The group also played a key role to promote the development and knowledge of volunteering work locally. After several months' fermentation, Association of Volunteers Social Service Macao (abbreviated to AVSM in reference to Portuguese) was established on July 18th, 1986 and formally registered on August 14th, 1987.
AVSM was located on the ground floor at 24 R. da Me. Terezina upon its establishment, which was borrowed from a relative of one of our members. Later on, the house was acquired and for a long time the address of AVSM was just a mailbox only until 1993 when the government lent us the youth center of Macao Forum as our office. At the beginning of 1994 the office of AVSM was moved to current place---- Center of Iao-hon associations upon its establishment.
Over the last 20 years, AVSM has hosted a range of different training courses and activities including but not limited to volunteer training for beginners and leaders, skills training of service and communication, International Volunteer Day, international volunteer exchange programme etc. In addition, our bimonthly journal “Bees’ Message” was published in October, 1992 to distribute information of volunteering work and promote activities of our association and other social service organizations regularly.
The work of AVSM was started from scratch, all our former leaders, members and volunteers have put a lot of effort in order to gain the recognition and support from our government and society over the past 20 years. In the future, AVSM will keep contributing to local volunteering work and encouraging more people to join volunteering work by working with a wide range of organizations so as to make a better society.
Nowadays most of the independent volunteer groups are formed by senior volunteers rather than subordinated to certain organizations. Independent groups have faced huge number of problems due to the lack of social support such as sites, capital and human resources, they have to ask for funding themselves after work as well as to hold different activities and provide services. In regard to this situation, AVSM has been motivated to cooperate with other volunteer groups to make the most of social resources and to take on our social responsibility in order to fill our city with love and warmth.
Aims
- To unite of the Macao's voluntary social worker
AVSM pays attention to the horizontal connection with other social service groups and volunteers. Over the past few years, AVSM has hosted several volunteer fellowships, exchange programme and awarding activities by cooperating with all kinds of social groups. These activities include fellowships involving local voluntary social workers from over 20 groups stayed together to celebrate New Year’s Eve, Happy Volunteer Day, and Awards Ceremony as part of the International Volunteer Day. Our association holds at least one exchange programme publicly every year. These programmes target to local volunteers, they visit organizations in other countries in order to expand their horizon. During the visit, they would serve and learn by working with local volunteers. The first volunteering journal “Bees’ Message” was published in 1993 by AVSM. Different local organizations would post their news in our journal. Therefore, we hope it can act as a bridge between AVSM and local organizations. AVSM has visited more than 100 social service organizations to exchange ideas since its establishment.
- To strengthen the social recognition towards the vouluntary social work
On the International Volunteer Day of 1994, the Association of National Young Volunteers was founded. Since then, the branches of this association have spread over the country in different provinces, cities, and counties, which proves the value of volunteering work. In Macao, volunteer organizations which target to various groups of people are still establishing. These organizations include volunteers for elderly, working people, youths, teenagers, the handicapped, and cancer patients, etc. Volunteer groups of Macao should strengthen the connection with, learn from, and cooperate with mainland volunteer groups to develop all kinds of services.
- To promote the development of volunteer services in Macao
AVSM spares no effort to promote activities to spread knowledge of volunteering work and advance the development of volunteering work. To support the idea of choosing every December 5th as the International Volunteer Day by the UN, every year AVSM would reward volunteers for their contributions to the society through various awarding activities and promoting forms, and also to appeal to and encourage all Macao citizens to participate in volunteering work. We deeply believe that loving and helping each other is the nature of human beings, and each person bears the obligation to promote with efforts the prosperity and advancement of human society, and we feel the mission of promoting the development of volunteering work could not be shirked.
AVSM boasts a wide range of volunteer training courses such as basic volunteer training course in units, all kinds of social service skills and volunteer leader training course, and comprehensive service course in series. Through diverse training forms, we hope to strengthen volunteers’ abilities including independent thinking, and agile perception of the changeable society, and their sense of responsibility for the society and even that they would become a trainer and assist the training courses to improve the quality of services.
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