Hospice Voluntary Service in the Past and Today. An Attempt at Describing the Changes in the Strategy of Mobilizing for Volutary Service in the Symbolic Perspective

The text describes the values that are currently implemented in hospice volunteer service under consideration as per the theory of the symbolic dimension of collective action proposed by Donatello della Porta and Marco Diani. The values are presented from the two perspectives: motives mobilizing volunteers to get involved, the most important key in voluntary work and descriptions and interpretations of hospice volunteering by those in charge: coordinators and leaders of the movement. The method was used in order to display the current values of hospice volunteer movement and compare them with the ideology of the movement at the beginning of its formation in Poland. The data used for the analysis comes from my own research concluded in two palliative and hospice centers. Analysis of the transformation of values in hospice volunteer service shows the emergence of new motives to take action, for example, experience of illness, death of a family member and support received from the hospice, and elevation of self perceived value. A service to a person in need, charity, especially in the rhetoric of promoting hospice volunteering fades slowly. Leaders of hospice centers show voluntary service as a way of life, the purpose-making factor, and the possibility to develop people-to-people contacts. The added value of the text is extending the analysis to other areas of voluntary activity, drawing attention to the aspect of values and motivation. A more in-depth analysis on the subject matter would be of value and would furthermore help to determine key human values (selflessness, charity, and the will to help fellow man) surrounding the issue.

The article examines moral responsibility as a specific subjective-objective phenomenon of oral folk art using the example of folklore non-ritual lyric-epic texts. It is analyzed the conceptual dilemma of responsibility – irresponsibility and its role in implementing the functions of oral traditional culture. The authors focus on the correlation between the concepts of individual and social responsibility. In addition, the problem of social responsibility as an evident form of the relations between the individual and society driven by the need to comply with coexistence rules is actualized. Folk consciousness accumulates knowledge about responsibility as one of the forms of social relations, which objectively exists, is reflected in the psychological and spiritual aspects, and hence is an internal (towards oneself) and external (towards the community and humanity as a whole) manifestation of responsibility. Essential characteristics and forms of textualization of moral responsibility in folk songs are outlined: every time a practical act is compared with a proper one in real life, i.e., a moral ideal, through the reflection of the characters of a folklore work and the manifestation of behavior in a particular life situation. It is established that morality in oral literature appears simultaneously as a regulatory structure and a system of meanings of the subject and society as a whole. The imperativeness inherent in the belief system of a traditional work becomes not only a statement of a particular position but also a request for understanding the idea of life purpose at the author-audience level. The tragic event reinterpreted by folk consciousness transfers the axiological content of the depicted act to the collective memory. The essence of the responsibility–irresponsibility dilemma unfolds through a specific human reality. The analysis of non-ritual lyric-epic songs highlights a crucial axiom: moral responsibility is, first of all, the affirmation of the view of life, beliefs, and principles of a person who perceives these moments as own, imagined, and suffered. Having separated temptations of the empirical world, the essential from the insignificant, a person isolates the dominant landmarks of their existence, often leveling out the possibility of personal happiness, acting for the benefit of others. A folklore work conceives the relevance of individual and social consciousness since the depicted folk event raises the current problem to the level of collective comprehension, highlighting the imperative of human life value.

The paper presents research findings in the field of motivation for the study of social work at PF MBU from the graduates’ perspective as an output of a partial task within the Faculty project “Assessment of the quality of the study and employment opportunities for the social work graduates of PF MBU”, which was researched in the period of 2005–2006 by the members of the Department of Social Work at the Pedagogical Faculty of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica.