On December 5, we mark the International Volunteer Day. It was first celebrated in 1985 at the initiative of the United Nations, when it invited governments and non-governmental organizations in all countries to show their respect and gratitude to volunteers and to promote their work.

One of the organisations in this country with the largest resource of volunteers is the Bulgarian Red Cross. According to its Deputy Director General Slavita Djambazova, their number is more than 17,000. Some of them are permanent ones, and others participate only in some of the campaigns.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the volunteers of the Bulgarian Red Cross have been actively involved in providing food for the elderly, sick or quarantined, as well as in providing personal protective equipment and specialized medical equipment from the disaster reserve of the organization for medics on the front line in the fight against Covid-19. The provision of food for people in need is carried out with the assistance of social structures in the municipal administrations, as well as with the help of the Social Assistance Agency.

Along with calls from citizens on the organization’s hotlines for psychological help or other types of requests, the signals responded to by Red Cross volunteers this year have been of various kinds.

"They are connected with everything that could happen in life,” Slavita Djambazova says. “One may need our support when a fire breaks out in someone's home. Then our volunteers check the place; make plans for the most necessary things for everyday life. If the situation is beyond the competence of the Bulgarian Red Cross, we provide consultations to the victims and contacts with other institutions.”

In addition, the Bulgarian Red Cross has been actively working with victims of road accidents, as well as providing hot lunch to children at risk in various areas of the country. The Bulgarian Red Cross is also supported by the international community in its activities and this year, after the global call of theInternational Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), it received and distributed more than 30,000 packages of hygiene materials throughout the country.

The role of volunteers is vital for the work of the Bulgarian Red Cross. And this has been a fact since the establishment of the first two Red Cross societies, established in the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia immediately after the Liberation. A number of ordinary and prominent citizens of post-liberation Bulgaria worked voluntarily in various societies before the establishment of the national organization back in 1885.

"What the volunteers are doing is setting an example and if it is followed by more people, our world will become much more tolerant and prosperous place," the Deputy Director General of the Bulgarian Red Cross Slavita Djambazova said in conclusion.

English: Alexander Markov