The President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, participated once again in the celebration of this date, established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1985, through a note published on the official website of the Presidency of the Republic.
“Without volunteering, there would be many thousands of institutions worldwide struggling for peace, justice, human rights, sustainable development, and against poverty and inequalities,” writes the head of state.
Referring to the internal situation, he adds: “Without volunteering, there would not be thousands of IPSS, charities, informal caregivers, and many others in Portugal ensuring the resilience of the social fabric, especially during crises or pandemics experienced in recent years and decades.”
The President of the Republic “remembers and thanks these very simple realities on this day dedicated to volunteering in Portugal and around the world.”
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also marked this international day in 2024 through a written message in which he argued that volunteering is a social responsibility of all citizens and should be valued as a form of personal development.
In 2018, the head of state suggested that volunteering be incorporated into school life as “a curricular time and not extracurricular” and perhaps should even be practiced by politicians and leaders of business and trade union confederations.
In 2019, he pointed out that Portugal is statistically “one of the worst countries in Europe” in terms of organized volunteering and identified “the organization of volunteering” as a “great challenge” for the coming years.
