The Department of Community Development in Abu Dhabi have concluded the first phase of virtual tours organized for the entities in the social sector in the Emirate, with the aim to introduce the Volunteering Policy launched by the department to regulate volunteer work. The virtual tour for each entity has shed the light on the policy’s priority goals that aims to create an efficient and vital environment for volunteering through spreading awareness and increasing participation in volunteerism and set guidelines to protect volunteers.
Field and types of volunteering has been introduced as well, where they are classified into 9 categories, in addition to that, the virtual tours have also included the 3 permit types: Individual volunteer permit; issued to individuals who wish to volunteer, secondly is the Volunteering Team permit which is a fairly new permit that is issued for a group of 5 or more persons constituting a team to carry out volunteer work without the affiliation to an entity or organization and thirdly, a permit for any legal private, public or third sector entity that would like to involve volunteers in any activity.
The results in the virtual tours have indicated the satisfaction of the participants with the introductory tours of the Policy in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, as the results indicated that 94% of the attendees have found the answers to all their questions about volunteer work in Abu Dhabi, while 84% of them expressed their wish to engage in volunteer work and apply for a permit in Abu Dhabi.
To this concern, H.E Sultan Al Mutawa’a Al Dhaheri, Executive Director of Community Engagement and Sports at the DCD, said: “The virtual tours is a representation of an accessible gateway for those who wish to engage in volunteer work field and seek a better understanding of the volunteering policy in Abu Dhabi. This contributes to promoting the volunteering work system by recruiting a team of excellence from all segments of society. ”
Al Dhaheri added: “The Virtual Tours continues the journey amongst a large number of employees, volunteers, students and individuals from all segments of the community, where the following phases of the tours will continue on a larger scale to include the government and private sector as well as the third sector also, the virtual tours will target the places of worship and academic practices in Abu Dhabi.”