Volunteer work began with philosophical, religious, moral background of self-sacrifice, dedication and service, charity, mutual aid, philanthropy, humanitarianism, democracy, etc. seen from human history. In Korean voluntary work, gye for the purpose ...
Volunteer work began with philosophical, religious, moral background of self-sacrifice, dedication and service, charity, mutual aid, philanthropy, humanitarianism, democracy, etc. seen from human history. In Korean voluntary work, gye for the purpose of mutual aid flourished in the time of the Three Han State, and this had have common interest through events such as get-together, ancestral ritual formalities or congregate dining jointly in the common fields of interest or other living standards as the pure resident community. This gye had been developed in various forms by the Sinra ear and has being come in similar form up to this day. There was dure other than gye in the period of Sinra, dure was the farmers`` cooperative group composed of village unit for mutual aid, inspection of rural community and relief measure of the poor, jindaebeob of Goguryeo era, uichang·jewibo·hyemingugje of Goryeo era, sangpeongchang·sachang·hyangyak of Joseon dynasty was the system exceeding poor law of England and could be seen as efforts for social welfare taken under the responsibility of social solidarity. Beginning to conduct volunteer activities in the modern meaning was from developing volunteer work for women`` enlightenments and children`` health at Taehwa Christianity Society Complex, 1921, starting the foundation of YMCA, 1903.However in this period, there could appear to be begun volunteer activities of rudimentary forms with charitable, philanthropic character of church and relevant groups by the introduction of Christian ideas, philosophy of democracy, etc. according to propagation of Christianity. That interest on volunteer work was rising in earnest came into the 1980s. This is because social·economical changes such as improvement of the economic levels, increase of national consciousness, change of family structure, etc. are a big factor, Korean Women’s Development Institute established the volunteer manpower bank in 1984, and volunteer activities developed more systematically by consisting of volunteers in 1985 by the Olympic organized committee. Especially in ``86 Asian Game and ``88 Olympic, a nationwide use of volunteer largely contributed to recognize and spread volunteer work all over the country. According to the record, an act of charity was recorded on Egyptian tomb 4,300 years ago, and in the time of the Greeks, they tried to find the answer of social problem in social reform rather than in relief of the individual pain and Philanthropy providing benefits to all was developed. In England, Charity organization society established in 1869 pursued an effective adjustment between welfare business and institute, and avoided the overlap and competition of relief administration and was to develop the organization and technique. Settlement House Movement started about 15 years later than the charity organization society in order to deal with the same social problem at that time, but viewpoint approaching the problems was much different. Settlement House movement was that the environmental factor based on liberalism and radicalism idea in those days was the source of the very social problem. Approach to the problem emphasized not modification of the poor but social reformative side having to change existing order. This tried to find the realizable effective solutions in a concrete way in a pragmatic stance. This was just the first social group work. In America, the charity organization society started a charity at Buffalo, New York in 1877, and Hull house was also built at Chicago in 1889. Everyone that worked at Hull house was housed and lived in settlement house. In Japan, Osaka volunteering association built in 1965 was concentrating on education and training as the first private volunteering association. This was the model of voluntary school in Japan. Welfare ministry began to make welfare volunteer village from 1985, and social welfare council installed the volunteer center throughout the country. Volunteer activity began to be vitalized nationally in school education such as forming the nationwide volunteer study leader contact council becoming the focal point for teachers, etc. People living in the 21th century were living in the direct effect of the fast-changing social structures and economical circumstances. In the rapidly changing society, every member tries to keep up the pace of change, for which struggles to maintain physical·economical·psychological stability. Notwithstanding all sorts of social welfare policies being pushed by government, there still exist those suffering from physical, psychological isolation in people who are neglected in society. These can find the case of neglect in the visible or invisible presence on the ground of budget deficits. The very volunteer is the way that can support the area beyond hand of government or local government like this. In addition, because volunteers are unpaid human resources with spontaneity and want to extend help to others or members of the society, they can promote ideal community development and local change. The member in society can have the meaning to drive voluntarily efforts to convert a person who cannot enjoy the social welfare benefits to the state of enjoying the social welfare benefits. Therefore volunteer activities can be playing pivotal role in forming democratic welfare society based on the sound civic spirit. The history of volunteer work in our country is relatively short compared to other advanced countries such as England or America, etc. Of course in case of the four ceremonial occasions of coming of age, wedding, funeral, and ancestral rites or work of farming season with a rural village as a unit, there exists the tradition such as dure, exchange of labor, gye, hyangyak, etc. in the form of reciprocity to help one another among the village people, however because these traditions have strongly the concept of risk-reduction by collective effort in aspects of economic compensation to help one another by working for one another and preparation for emergency of disaster, etc. rather than are grounded on volunteer spirit, they are not volunteer work in the original meaning. Thus, based on the overall activity from traditional volunteer activities up to modern volunteer activities, considering the historical development of volunteer activities in our country prepares the administrative system and the system under administration law in regard to granting the meaning and value to the development of volunteer work, and furthermore has a significance in contributing to development of volunteer work.