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The role of spontaneous volunteers in the dynamic humanitarian system
Smejkal, Richard ; Pinc, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Sokol, Jan (referee) ; Murgaš, Jaromír (referee)
Increasingly, we hear that the humanitarian system has exhausted its potential and is over the abyss. The volume of funds, the number of humanitarian organizations and the number of rescued people are growing year after year. Nevertheless, the gap between needs and real humanitarian assistance is steadily increasing. Traditional humanitarian actors have been unsuccessfully looking for ways to repair the system that once worked well. Attempts at financial and institutional reform fail, and the debate on humanitarian principles annoys the main actors. This work shows that the traditional humanitarian system is only a part of the larger ecosystem of humanitarian assistance, and analyzes the external influences it fails to cope with in the last decade, and why minor repairs and corrections are not enough and a new system architecture is needed. The author identifies new humanitarian actors with whom the traditional system does not count and points to spontaneous volunteers as a group with dynamic potential and ability to create a parallel system to professional disaster and emergency managers. Since it is an undervalued and overlooked actor, the author refines the definition of spontaneous volunteering. Using the case studies of the Cajun Navy in Louisiana (U.S.) and the confessions of medical rescuers...
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The role of spontaneous volunteers in the dynamic humanitarian system
Smejkal, Richard ; Pinc, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Sokol, Jan (referee) ; Murgaš, Jaromír (referee)
Increasingly, we hear that the humanitarian system has exhausted its potential and is over the abyss. The volume of funds, the number of humanitarian organizations and the number of rescued people are growing year after year. Nevertheless, the gap between needs and real humanitarian assistance is steadily increasing. Traditional humanitarian actors have been unsuccessfully looking for ways to repair the system that once worked well. Attempts at financial and institutional reform fail, and the debate on humanitarian principles annoys the main actors. This work shows that the traditional humanitarian system is only a part of the larger ecosystem of humanitarian assistance, and analyzes the external influences it fails to cope with in the last decade, and why minor repairs and corrections are not enough and a new system architecture is needed. The author identifies new humanitarian actors with whom the traditional system does not count and points to spontaneous volunteers as a group with dynamic potential and ability to create a parallel system to professional disaster and emergency managers. Since it is an undervalued and overlooked actor, the author refines the definition of spontaneous volunteering. Using the case studies of the Cajun Navy in Louisiana (U.S.) and the confessions of medical rescuers...
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