Joana Moreira, the one who intentionally wants to double volunteering in Portugal | young people
Joana Moreira intentionally made herself 16 years ago because she thought she had too many holidays, was recognized on Monday by the worldwide network of social entrepreneurs ashoka and now wants to solve the “problem of low civic and social participation” in the country.
According to the entrepreneur, the numbers of the European Commission on the young volunteer in Portugalwhich indicate a participation of less than 10%, are unrealistic for not recognizing activism, but, they believe, could double in a decade.
At the age of 32, the volunteering journey started at the age of 16 at Olival, in Vila Nova de Gaia, made her work in social neighborhoods, juvenile prisons, reception and support centers for the disabled and even in an international context, to which she associated training in Clinical Psychology at the University of Porto, a journey without a date to stop in a country where the number of young volunteers is less than 10%, I tell Lusa.
The causes for the lack of interest, he said, are three: the excess of information often makes young people feel lost when it comes to participating, the fact that Education for Citizenship in schools is not a priority in education and the impact brutality of the covid-19 pandemic, also having repercussions in terms of mental health, meaning that there are more and more young people with anxiety and relationship problems.
The growth of numbers in Portugal “will not be easy, nor does it depend exclusively on the participation of young people”, explained Joana Moreira, alluding to the “European Commission (EC) reports on the volunteer”, where “activism does not count as such”, framing only “formal volunteering, which is done through an organization”.
Pointing out the disagreement by the reading of the EC on the numbers of the young volunteer, the social entrepreneur agrees that the environmental activism that grows in Portuguese young people “can be a brutal opportunity to make the numbers grow”.
Member since 2013 of Transformers Movementa non-governmental development organization based in Porto, and whose vision, reads on the website, is “to increase the involvement of people in their communities through what else to do”, Joana Moreira pointed out that the focus has always been on “volunteering and in its promotion”.
In this context, I believe in a positive evolution of the young volunteer: “I fully believe so. To triplicate is to be a bit ambitious, not least because there is a set of public policies that should change to keep up with this growth, but I would say that doubling easily [acontecerá]🇧🇷
An example of this, he noted, is the change promoted by the Portuguese Institute of Sports and Youth, which “until then supported student and youth associations and now has a new format that is youth associations, which are all those that jobs for young people not being the leaders properly young”.
Sixteen years after the decision that made her realize that “if each person did their part, everything makes more sense”, Joana Moreira became on Monday, in Spain, a member of the worldwide network of social entrepreneurs recognized by Ashoka , an organization founded in 1981 in the United States.
Distinguished for her “leadership, creativity, empathy and commitment to solving social problems in an effective and creative way”, Joana Moreira joins the network of 3,600 social innovators (Ashoka Fellows) worldwide, who work in a systemic way to provoke change in the world in several areas of activity: environment, human rights, health, economic development, education and civic participation.
From Ashoka’s distinction, she said she hopes that it will be “fundamental to validate what they are doing in the Transformers Movement” and that, as a social entrepreneur, it will help to “solve the problem of low civic and social participation” in the country.
To this end, he stressed that he wanted to “take advantage of the fact that the Portuguese entrepreneurship ecosystem is at a much faster pace than other European countries, because there are public policies in this regard, because there is public and community investment, because there are structures, whether educational or governmental , concerned with the innovation of social entrepreneurship”.
“Portugal is an extraordinary place to be born as a social entrepreneurship organization”, he said, reflecting his optimism about the future of the activity in the country.