Collective Action for Surviving Well: Volunteering to help meet the needs of others.

While governments contribute to well-being through basic service provision, community organisations can also use available resources such as people’s volunteer labour to increase people’s well-being directly or indirectly. In these iniatives the benefits flow both ways: volunteers often increase their community well-being, while ‘recipients’ benefit from increased material well-being.

Initiatives in which people are directly contributing to the well-being of others include:

Akanksha, which provides educational services to young people living in slums in India by using donations and volunteer teachers’ labour

Habitat for Humanity which uses volunteer labour, and donated funds and materials to build and repair housing for people in need. Habitat for Humanity has worked in ninety different countries.