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Research Journal of the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka- Rohana 11, 2019

The community is recognized as the expert on what it needs. Therefore, the reasons

why people are involved in volunteering are valued. All aspects of need, for
example, individual, family, group, and community, are recognized so that

representatives of all those levels are invited and enabled to participate and
contribute. Those community members who might perhaps not have realized that

they could become involved are reached out and connected. Building relationships is
supported and relationships that already exist are valued and recognized.

The following Figure (Figure 1) depicts how connection-centered volunteerism

operates at grassroots levels. It is built upon three key pillars which involve

approach, principles and key players or stakeholders.

The key players involved include are volunteers, community, and external resources
especially the facilitators of the entire process representing institutional structures at

the community level, mostly community-based organizations which recruit

volunteers and apply more sophisticated volunteering strategies in their community
actions.

However, all pillars clearly reflect the value of being community-centered so that

the community itself inherently becomes the central element. Strategies are also a
reflection of extensions of the key principles but, at the same time, are what the

volunteering activism aims to achieve so that they can be recognized as outcomes as

well. In this way, strategies and outcomes set the local condition for furthering
active and strong community involvement in local level social development action.

Approach and principles

The vision of connection-centered volunteering is clearly underlined by the belief

that empowered people become central element of affairs, processes and tasks that
affect their own life progress. It assumes that, to reach out grassroots and facilitate

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