More than 6% of Spain's residents do regular volunteer work
Monday, December 6, 2021 @ 7:53 PM
OVER 2.7 million residents in Spain carry out volunteer work of some description, with three in 10 of them aged from 14 to 35 inclusive – in total, 6.4% of teenagers and adults in the country give up some of their time regularly for unpaid charitable, social and humanitarian efforts.
Expatriate pensioners who moved to Spain to spend their retirement in the sun have long been regular volunteers, involved in everything from working in charity shops to helping at animal shelters, and organising fund-raisers for children's shelters, the homeless, the disabled, for cancer research and care, and numerous other causes.
Long-standing charities, mostly based on Spain's coasts, include HELP, which assists people in hospital, provides home care and loan of equipment; MABS and Cancer Care Jávea, which provide support and care for people with cancer and their loved ones; U3A fund-raising groups and independent charity shops which often sponsor a particular local cause, or several, each year, or long term – some of the latter amass up to €40,000 or €50,000 a year for poverty relief, children's homes and homeless shelters in their towns – and a high number of expat-run animal sanctuaries on the Costas and their wider provinces have their own charity shop and run events ranging from fêtes to fashion shows throughout the year to fund pet food and veterinary care.
Anyone moving to Spain after giving up the rat-race and hoping to spend some of their retirement helping people and animals in the community will have plenty of opportunity to do so, and will probably find quite an international mix among their 'colleagues'.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com