Peter Devereux

The Longitudinal Study of Australian Volunteers (LSAV) is a research project that aims to explicate whether, why and how participating in the Australian Volunteers Program (the program) influences volunteers personally and professionally in relation to four outcome areas: (i) civic participation, engagement and literacy (civic), (ii) global literacy and connections (international), (iii) career progression and professional capabilities (professional), and (iv) personal circumstances and capabilities (personal).

This report outlines findings of the study’s first three years (2019-21), which tracked a cohort of 54 Australian volunteers and “approved accompanying dependents” (AADs) who in 2019 commenced assignments in 16 countries. Scheduled assignment durations ranged from 2-18 months although most were curtailed prematurely by COVID. Data were collected via a series of semi-structured interviews with each participant at three waves: prior to commencing their assignment (T1), at the end of their assignment (T2), and again 12 months after completing their assignment (T3). This report complements earlier reports outlining participants’ preassignment motives and expectations (Phase One, 2019) and in-country experiences (Phase Two, 2020)...

This report summarises results of the first wave of data collected in Phase Two of the research project, Longitudinal Study of Australian Volunteers. The report presents results of interviews with 55 participants at the completion of their international volunteer assignment. It addresses participants’ main in-country experiences, self-reported learning and changes, perceptions of in-country support from the program, and the perceptions of 38 participants who were repatriated in March 2020 as a result of the global escalation of COVID-19 cases.

The State of the World’s Volunteerism Report 2015 is the first global review of the power of volunteer voices to help improve the way people are governed.

Drawing on evidence from countries as diverse as Brazil, Kenya, Lebanon and Bangladesh, the UN report shows how ordinary people are volunteering their time, energies and skills to improve the way they are governed and engaged at local, national and global levels.
Better governance at every level is a pre-requisite for the success of the new set of targets for future international development, the Sustainable Development Goals, which are due to be agreed at the United Nations in September 2015.
More than 1 billion people volunteer globally, the majority of them working in their own countries. Many are in the forefront of efforts to improve the way they and their fellow citizens are governed and engaged -volunteers are playing a vital role in making governments worldwide more accountable and responsive to their citizens.
They are working with governments and civil society to hold those in power to account, to represent the voices of those who are often left out of development decisions such as women, youth and marginalised groups. The end result is more inclusive -and ultimately more effective- development.

The ALTC project reported here, Demonstrating Distributed Leadership Through CrossDisciplinary Peer Networks: Responding to Climate Change Complexity extended a successful pilot project at the University of Tasmania. Hereafter referred to as Leadership Networks for Climate Change (LNCC), the project created cross-disciplinary teaching networks at four higher education institutions; the University of Wollongong, the University of New South Wales, Murdoch University and the University of Tasmania. These networks of around eight to twenty teaching staff employed a ‘communities of practice’ approach, whereby tight-knit teams of teachers from diverse disciplines collaborated around an issue of shared concern. This LNCC model identified two key network roles: that of the catalyst or ‘activator’ and that of the facilitator or ‘integrator’. While activators were involved in the original grant application and held teaching positions at each institution, integrators were employed using the resources of the ALTC grant.

Each network developed collaborative teaching approaches to the goal of promoting interdisciplinary student learning about climate change. As participation was voluntary, the project relied upon the intrinsic motivation of network members and opportunities created by the paid position of network integrator. Some networks also included research staff, academic developers and students. Rather than imposing a predetermined pedagogy of interdisciplinary teaching about climate change, the LNCC model was primarily aimed at helping teaching staff to innovate within existing teaching structures and workloads. Innovation took a variety of forms, including team-teaching, sharing of teaching materials, the use of a common problem in the curriculum of units in different disciplines, collaboration between students in different disciplines, student-staff collaboration in curriculum design and delivery and public communication by staff and students on the topic of climate change.