Every seventh FSS student does volunteer work
You can find FSS volunteers at the organization Podané ruce, homes for the elderly, or social care homes. Out of all of the students at the Faculty of Social Studies, 14.4 percent of them volunteered through the MUNI Helps Center during the pandemic. To give you a better idea: one in seven FSS students does some kind of volunteer work. This puts FSS in a tie for second place among all MU faculties.
A group of female students from the Faculty of Social Studies, for example, lent a hand at the newly established Vlhká Contact Center, for which they received Masaryk University’s Rector's Award. They devoted themselves to helping homeless people, gaining valuable practical experience while also conscientiously fulfilling their academic obligations.
FSS had already responded to the call for volunteers last spring and decided to help vulnerable groups with a high level of commitment. FSS volunteers have been actively helping throughout the pandemic, and of all student volunteers, the FSS’ share is eleven percent. Most frequently these are students from the following programs: Public and Social Policy and Human Resources, and Psychology.
Masaryk University decided to offer help to those who need it most during the pandemic. In March 2020, it established the MUNI Helps Volunteer Center, which has since been joined by interested people from all of the faculties and from members of the general public. During the second wave, the database saw an even higher number of applicants than in the first wave of the epidemic. The university currently boasts 5,148 volunteers from both the student body (3,837) and the general public (1,311). The number of volunteers has continued to grow. For example, 706 new pairs of helping hands were added between 13 February and 13 March 2021.
The credit for the development of the MUNI Helps mobile and web application goes to the Faculty of Informatics, which also contributed to the creation of the volunteer map, individual IT assistance to seniors, and the installation of computers at the University Hospital in Brno after it suffered a cyber attack. Volunteers from the Faculty of Education, in their turn, decided to help relieve the workload of families with children by offering babysitting and tutoring. Over the course of the COVID pandemic, the demand for such services has increased enormously.
