Currently, it is impossible to count the number of organizations non-governmental (NGO), called Civil society organizations in more recent times by the tissue and the social and citizen participation that this type of entities try to build. In Spain have been posted more than 1,500 and, in France, more than 40,000. They act in the scope of social, environmental and cultural, volunteering in projects of cooperation to development in the countries of the South, but they also devote part of its effort to raise and commit to civil society to influence the problems affecting the poor, the disabled, the elderly who live alone, the sick, prisoners and all social excluded. By the figures, you could say that the phenomenon that emerged at the end of the 1960s has been a success and is well grounded. However, these organizations in changed in several respects. At its inception, Volunteering was more associated with militancy, protest against an unjust world and the search for alternative proposals.
The images of the Viet Nam war and hunger in Biafra, the exponential increase of University students enrolled in the world and with access to the information by different media penetrated the consciousness of thousands of young people in the developed world. The same technological development that allowed this decision of conscience has given the world of a complexity that hinders participation in public today. On the other hand, the operation of these organizations relied more on the commitment of its founders and its volunteers who not only aranaban time to develop their various programmes, but also the funds they needed to do so. Today, the total budget of the OSC in France equivalent to 2.6 billion and almost 41,000 full-time jobs. Projects are supported today more in the professionalization of the sector today there is debate if professionalization excess robs these organizations of their identity-, in the incorporation of private enterprise through grants, initiatives such as of Corporate Social responsibility, although some companies have used to the OSC to your image. On the other hand, budgets that handle many organizations today hinder the processes of transparency and open the door to fraudulent and unprincipled practices of ethics as those that have been uncovered in 2007. However, still giving priority examples of commitment to solidarity not only among young people who repudiate a model of unjust development, but also of retired people who are reluctant to be away from the fabric of society by having ceased to produce.
European civil society organizations have the luxury of the sustained commitment of people who had already witnessed the dawn of volunteering. There are even people who work in other sectors and, at the end of the day or during their weekends, undertakes to act together with the excluded against exclusion. These organizations pending task to take advantage of technologies to create networks influencing policies, to be well connected to the rest of the world and to provide spaces for participation when it the street It leaves each time more than be a public space. In it are the organizations of civil society. Carlos Miguelez Periodista original author and source of the article.