Proceedings from the international scientific symposium held on 20. 11. 2018 in Košice. The organizers were the Theological Faculty, Košice, and the Catholic University in Ružomberok.

I am glad that the Ecumenical Church Community in Košice, in cooperation with the Department of Social Sciences of the Theological Faculty of the Catholic University in Ružomberok, the Theological Faculty of KU, as well as KSK Košice and the City of Košice, organized an international conference titled Volunteering as Service at the Theological Faculty of KU. The goal of the conference was to present the religious dimension of volunteering; to introduce the use of volunteering in individual churches; to motivate people to volunteer; and to share good-practice experiences within individual churches. The thematic areas presented at the conference were: religious dimension of volunteering; volunteering in church communities; volunteering in Košice; and the benefits of volunteering.

Volunteering can be performed by people regardless of gender, education, religion, or race. We are pleased that Košice, where this conference takes place today, received the title European Capital of Volunteering 2019. Thus, Košice became the first city from the Central and Eastern European countries and, after Barcelona, Lisbon, London, Sligo, and Aarhus, the sixth European city to receive this distinction. Volunteering in Košice has a long tradition, but it has expanded significantly mainly in recent years. I would like to mention here many volunteers from our church and religious communities, as well as from various organizations, who daily engage in social work with chronically ill people, people with disabilities, people in need, and also in work with youth and seniors.

Volunteer work has a long tradition in the world and is an inseparable part of social development. Volunteering is characterized as unpaid, intentional activity carried out of one’s own free will and for the benefit of others. A volunteer is a person who offers an organization their knowledge, abilities, skills, and experience under agreed conditions and is not financially rewarded for this activity in the form of a wage as an ordinary employee would be. A volunteer is a person who acts on the basis of their own free choice and in their free time. For a person with a volunteering heart, the meaning of life is to use oneself as a tool for helping others without expecting any return. Experienced volunteers remain in this service precisely because they feel they achieved what they set out to achieve, thereby simply fulfilling the meaning of their lives.

Volunteering provides, beyond a sense of belonging, self-realization, satisfaction, and many practical experiences, above all the opportunity to help a person and thereby make them happy. The significance of volunteering can be expressed through the functions it fulfills: 1. Service function – provides inhabitants with various kinds of public-service activities. 2. Innovative function – alongside the business sector it is a source of a large number of innovations. 3. Advocacy function – this is about defending and promoting the rights of an individual or groups. Volunteers defend the rights of clients and participate in improving the quality of their lives. 4. Expressive function – volunteer movements create a space for presenting differences in order to raise awareness of diversity (other cultures, races, languages). 5. Discovery function – people discover through volunteer activities abilities that they do not normally develop. 6. Community-building function – it supports their natural development and develops responsibility for life in a given community (neighborhood, municipality, city).

It should be noted that volunteering is strongly connected to the meaning of life, personal well-being, satisfaction, and quality of life. It is one of the paths of humanizing society, which increasingly relies only on material values and careerism.

I believe that the conference itself contributed to introducing and promoting volunteers and their activities in Košice and Slovakia and that this will continue.

ThDr. Radoslav Lojan, PhD. ES moderator

Volunteer and his role in developing countries in the context of religiosity and globalization

Contents

Volunteer and his role in developing countries in the context of religiosity and globalization Monika Nová

Volunteer work in the facilities of the Spiš Catholic Charity Zuzana Budayová

Volunteering in the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Gelnica (We start with the smallest ...) Marta Chlpíková

Volunteering as an inseparable part of acquiring social competencies of social work students (How we learn volunteering at the Faculty of Theology in Košice) Lýdia Lešková

Benefits of volunteering for young people Michaela Šuľová

Help and care for people living with addictions in Mukachevo (Transcarpathia), Viera Fedívá

Volunteering within the Reformed Church in UA János Heder

The Family Center Košice-Juh as a space for volunteer service Alexandra Šemegová, Gabriela Kardošová

Title: Volunteering as Service

Editor: Lukáš Knap Theological Faculty, Košice

Reviewers: prof. ThDr. Cyril Hišem, PhD. prof. ThDr. Gabriel Ragan, PhD.

Scientific advisors: ThDr. Radoslav Lojan, PhD. Scientific committee: prof. ThDr. PhDr. PeadDr. Jozef Jurko, PhD. prof. ThDr. Cyril Hišem, PhD. ThDr. Radoslav Lojan, PhD.

Organizing committee: ThDr. Radoslav Lojan, PhD. ThLic. Lukáš Knap Erika Mervová

Publisher: VERBUM – KU publishing house, Ružomberok 2018, 1st ed. Printing: SLZA s.r.o. ISBN 978 – 80 – 561 – 0615 – 0