The First Portuguese Volunteering Capital is officially open

The municipality of Cascais will be carrying out various volunteering activities throughout 2024 On Monday 29 January, the Cascais Citadel Palace was dressed in gala attire to host the Opening Ceremony of the First Portuguese Volunteer Capital, an initiative of the Portuguese Volunteer Confederation, which aims to promote and enhance this theme in Portugal. As an elected municipality, Cascais will develop a programme comprising various activities linked to volunteering throughout 2024, in a theme that is already part of the municipality's identity. "This initiative is part of what we consider the exercise of democracy, the exercise of the power of the people. Not representative democracy, but, in this case, collaborative democracy. If we all have this spirit of collaborating, of adding quality and not just quantity, we will indeed make a much better Cascais (...) We feel very honoured to have been chosen as the First Portuguese Volunteer Capital," said the Mayor of Cascais, Carlos Carreiras. For the president of the Portuguese Volunteer Confederation, Eugénio Fonseca, "in addition to recognising and valuing the work of volunteers in Cascais, we want other municipalities to be mobilised to follow Cascais's example, so that we can have a volunteering rate that matches the European rate". For his part, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who was unable to be physically present due to scheduling reasons, left a written message in which he emphasised that "this ceremony underlines the importance of the work that so many of us do on a daily basis, formally or informally. Volunteers in social and civic action, health, culture, the environment and sport. Adding value, contributing to building stronger and more resilient communities" The Secretary of State for Inclusion, Ana Sofia Antunes, attended the ceremony, saying that ‘this initiative will certainly be a success here in Cascais. May it be the seed of something bigger. Volunteering is about wanting to do something and believing that it's possible to do better and have an impact on the lives of others’. The representative of the European Volunteer Centre, Rita Marques, also wanted to leave her "best wishes for a very successful year for volunteering in Cascais". The most eagerly awaited and symbolic moment of the ceremony was the presentation of the Flag of the Portuguese Volunteering Capital to the Municipality of Cascais, which was attended on stage by the members of the Volunteering Division of Cascais City Council. It should be noted that this Division was created in 2022 and is part of the Participation and Citizenship Department. Its mission is to promote a culture of local volunteering in Cascais, as an exercise in active citizenship and solidarity. At the end of the ceremony, the Municipal Director, Luís Almeida Capão, presented the Programme of Activities for 2024. In this way, the community and the various volunteer agents will have at their disposal, throughout the year, and continuing the work that has been done, a quality municipal service exclusively dedicated to the subject of volunteering; free access for volunteers and volunteer-promoting organisations to certified training programmes, as well as various workshops to share good practices promoted by the different municipal services; and a series of events that value and publicly recognise the importance of volunteer work, such as the Volunteering Festival, which will take place on 24 and 25 May. Cascais, as the Portuguese Volunteering Capital, will be responsible for organising the 10th Intermunicipal Volunteering Meeting, to be held in November this year. In the course of 2024, the municipality will also apply for the Join4Change Quality Label for Volunteering. This Quality Label is co-financed by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation through the Active Citizenship Programme and is a system for valuing the quality of management practices in Volunteering Programmes. It should be remembered that the Municipality of Cascais has around 18,000 volunteers and more than 100 volunteer organisations. In Cascais, volunteering is citizenship.