Rome (Italy). December 5, 2025, marks International Volunteer Day, established in 1985 by the United Nations General Assembly with the aim of recognizing the important contribution of volunteers around the world, promoting their value, and highlighting the social, human, and civic impact of those who serve others.
“Every Contribution Matters” is the theme of Day 2025, to underline how every form of volunteering – large or small – is valuable and can help generate a positive impact on the entire community. Furthermore, the year 2025 marks the official launch of the International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development (IVY 2026), a global initiative that wishes to enhance the role of volunteering in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
VIDES Internazionale and the Foundation FVGS ETS since their inception, they have placed volunteering at the heart of their Mission. Drawing on the values of Salesian Spirituality, they wish to educate people about generosity and creativity, about joy rooted in love, about life, and about trusting that each person has the potential to grow and mature. Volunteering is, therefore, a gradual path rich in humanity and open to a universal landscape in constant mobility.
The volunteer does not simply provide immediate assistance, but can become an agent of social change, promoting a more just and equitable world for all. Volunteering involves active engagement beyond relief, to address and combat the root causes of injustice.
For this reason, the importance of volunteer formation, based on educational skills and issues such as human rights, interculturality, interreligious dialogue, responsible communication, and development cooperation, is clearly evident in the 52 groups that make up the VIDES International network.
Precisely for this purpose, in November, the Director General of VIDES International, Sister Annecie Audate, traveled around Brazil promoting the Salesian values of volunteering through numerous formation meetings. After the National Seminar held in Belo Horizonte, she stated, “Feeling how alive VIDES is in the hearts of the young people of this region gives peace and serenity. the Salesian charism truly continues to breathe, grow, and bear missionary and vocational fruits through the generosity of young lay people. A true joy for everyone in our great Salesian Family.”
The volunteer activities of VIDES are many, but all united by a focus on the dignity of the person. The groups work alongside children, youth, women, migrants, refugees, Roma communities, and victims of trafficking, offering educational, linguistic, sports, psychological, and legal support. Some carry out community development projects in the most fragile neighborhoods, collaborate with family homes and oratories, or create craft workshops and cultural initiatives.
A number of groups also organize fund-raisers, environmental protection activities – such as planting and clean-up campaigns – and health awareness actions, including the promotion of vaccinations and blood donations. In recent years, there has been an increase in awareness-raising activities on issues related to mental health and the digital divide. The shared commitment is to build supportive communities and foster the integral development of each person.
In 2024, more than 6,000 volunteers participated in VIDES activities in 49 Countries around the world.
Alongside the VIDES volunteers, the Universal Civil Service volunteers of the FVGS ETS also operate. Over the past year, 41 FVGS volunteer workers have operated for a period of approximately 10 months in Salesian Missions in Madagascar, Brazil, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic promoting through their work, the right to education for the most vulnerable sections of the population.
“Volunteering is the struggle of going out to help others. There is no desk volunteering and there is no television volunteering. Volunteering is always a going out, with the heart open, the hand outstretched, the legs ready to go.” (Pope Francis to the members of FOCSIV).
It is also the invitation of VIDES International to become “outgoing” volunteers ready to work for the common good and, to those who are already VIDES volunteers, to participate in the VIDES International Conference to be held in Seville from 26 to 30 August 2026, on the theme, “VIDES Volunteers: Missionaries of Hope and Bearers of Innovative Ideas Related to Social Justice, Integral Ecology, and Digital Communication.”
