Other Times, Other Places: BIVAR Seminar Series Kicked off in December - 4th January 2010

Other Times, Other Places: BIVAR Seminar Series Kicked off in December - 4th January 2010

The opening seminar of the 2009- 10 Birkbeck – IVAR partnership series kicked off on the 7th December with over 40 participants. This session – which drew from lessons of international development and historical research into volunteering – represented a novel departure for BIVAR sessions. Yet both speakers illustrated how some themes can remain persistent over time and space.

Georgina Brewis – who recently completed her PhD at the University of East London and works at the Institute for Volunteering Research – was the first speaker. She considered the implications a historical study of voluntary action in Britain and India before 1914 for the contemporary UK sector. She gave a fascinating account of the ideas behind young people volunteering abroad over 100 years ago and how some of the social and individual motivations remain pertinent today.

The second speaker was John Hailey, who is Visiting Professor at City University’s Cass Business School. He looked at the lessons the UK non-profit sector may learn from the way NGOs work internationally. John argued cogently for the need promote shared learning and skills development between international and UK experience on a number of key areas including capacity building, managing performance, partnerships and contract negotiation.

This session, which was organised in conjunction with the Voluntary Action History Society, is the first of five seminars which continue to June 2010. The second seminar in the series takes place on Thursday 4th February when Roger Spear (Open University) and Mike Aiken (IVAR) look at Social entrepreneurship, Social enterprise - examining evidence from recent research in the field.