Renewal of the activities of volunteer rescue organisations, dynamization of the volunteer movement through strengthening the social relations of the volunteer rescue organisations - part 1

Abstract

In Hungary, volunteer rescue organisations are one of the key pillars of voluntary cooperation in the disaster management as a national matter. The source of volunteering is the social capital within the framework of civil society. Involvement of the largest possible masses and the widest possible spectrum of society to the disaster management is a common interest and one of its possible way is the dynamization of voluntary movements. One solution is strengthening the social relationships of volunteer rescue organisations. Taking into consideration the characteristics of different communities, social participation in volunteer rescue organisations may be increased in a differentiated manner with regard to the good practice already existing domestically and abroad. Youth, higher education, business associations and other local communities can contribute specifically to the matter of disaster management and they represent an untapped human resource to the supply of human capital of voluntary movements. Social collectives are naturally built from the bottom up, however with the effective application of several tools, the state, the professional disaster management body can be the catalyst for social processes aimed at self-organization. In addition to the foregoing, the purpose of the study is to serve as a thought-provoking source for both public and private law actors regarding the possibilities of dynamizing the volunteer rescue organizations through the development of social relations. In the first part of the study, I deal with the role of voluntary rescue organizations in Hungary's disaster protection system and make suggestions to increase their visibility.