Volunteers like Paul Rogers, who this weekend begins his second stint of unpaid work in Africa, typify a central tenet of ''the New Zealand way''. But Kiwi expressions of altruism are undergoing some significant shifts, Bruce Munro writes.
Warning: Volunteering can make you an angry, caring, global citizen. When Otago businessman Paul Rogers (46) walked Dunedin's George St after returning from three months voluntary work in Kenya last year, he became upset.
''Western society is just so wasteful, when you see it from a different perspective,'' Mr Rogers says.
''It took me about three months to get my head back into a Western way of life. [In Kenya] you get so used to seeing poverty and so many negative things.
''Walking down the main street [here], I actually felt quite angry.''
But rather than being put off, the experience has galvanised Mr Rogers' resolve to be involved.
Tomorrow he flies back to Kenya. Back to a dusty, poverty-stricken settlement on the edge of Nakuru city, 150km northwest of the capital Nairobi where three weeks ago al Qaeda-linked gunmen attacked an upmarket shopping mall killing 67 people.
Back to an orphanage and school run by the New Zealand and Australian-based charity So They Can, which works among 6000 Kenyans who have been living in squalid conditions on a 6.5ha piece of land since fleeing post-election violence in late 2007 that killed 5000 and internally displaced up to 250,000 people.
And this time he is taking his son Mitchell (14) with him.
Mr Rogers and Mitchell are travelling further than most - about 13,000km further - to do their volunteering. But they are characteristic of the Kiwi desire to be ''a good sort''.
For several years, surveys have shown about two-thirds of us are regularly involved in unpaid work outside the home, putting our nation at the top of a list of 40 countries for the percentage of volunteers involved in the non-profit workforce.
Whether managing the construction of classrooms and toilet blocks for orphans in Africa, coaching a junior sports team or delivering meals on wheels, New Zealanders are generous and regular volunteers.
Or are we? New figures, and community sector representatives, point to some telling changes to the level and type of voluntary work being undertaken.
The catalyst for Mr Rogers' work in Kenya was hearing So They Can founders talk of visiting Kenya and ''stumbling across a rubbish dump with 3- and 4-year-old orphans living amongst the rubbish''.
He contacted the charity's New Zealand office and three weeks later was standing in Nakuru as the freshly appointed unpaid short-term construction manager.
The desire to help was reinforced by seeing with his own eyes ''half-million-dollar bulletproof black Range Rovers being driven past people who literally have nothing''.
His aim is to be ''just another cog in the wheel'' of the philanthropic organisation that uses education and skills training to break the cycle of poverty.
It is the same sort of sentiment expressed by most New Zealand volunteers, whatever their focus.
Volunteering Otago had 915 individual volunteer registrations, including 88 first-timers, during the four months to the end of July, the most recent period for which figures were available, manager Anna Clere said.
The most common reason given by those registering was ''giving something back to the community''.
It is an attitude Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA), New Zealand's largest volunteering agency working in international development, depends on and uses to good effect.
VSA receives $7 million a year from the Government (about 90% of its budget) to pursue its goal of creating a sustainable, brighter future for people living in the Pacific.
It does that by matching New Zealand volunteers' skills with projects in Melanesia, Polynesia and Timor-Leste, VSA communications co-ordinator Ruth Nichol says.
Volunteers need to have revelant skills, and be willing to share them, for it to work. Which it does, Ms Nichol adds.
''During the past 51 years we have sent more than 3000 volunteers on assignment,'' she says.
But if, as Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector Jo Goodhew says, our altruistic impulses continue to make ''a substantial social, cultural and economic contribution'', new figures suggest other forces are also at work, reshaping how we volunteer and even dissuading some of us from lending a hand.
A recently released national survey shows younger volunteers have developed a rather different approach to unpaid work.
The biennial New Zealand General Social Survey (NZGSS), released by Statistics New Zealand in August, reveals 15- to 34-year-olds do the least volunteering for organisations of all the age groups.
But it also shows that age group is on a par with, and in some cases ahead of, other age groups when it comes to unpaid work which is not for family or organisations.
It is a curious phenomenon that makes perfect sense to Mrs Clere.
''Younger people are not affiliating themselves with organisations so much, but rather they are running with a cause they believe in,'' she says.
It was a trend amply evidenced by the thousands of young people who flocked to join clean-ups organised by the Student Volunteer Army following each of Christchurch's two devastating earthquakes.
And it is an attitude the University of Otago is hoping to tap into through its brand-new Student Volunteer Centre (SVC).
''Collectively, the student body represents a massive volunteer force to do good in a wide range of areas,'' David Richardson, who is the university's director of student services, says.
The first ''cause'' SVC volunteers will tackle is helping ensure the success of Special Olympics New Zealand's eighth national summer games, in Dunedin, next month.
This age-defined distinction is also apparent in the Rogers family.
Mr Rogers is so impressed by the way So They Can operates he is now involved in an ongoing official capacity.
Mitchell, however, knows little about the charity but says he wants to help the children who would otherwise have few opportunities.
He is looking forward to his first African adventure and will have his hands full during the month spent in Nakuru.
Tucked away in his luggage is sports equipment that will be used in physical education classes he will help run each day at the school his father is helping build.
The inclination to choose causes and movements over organisations is not a concept most community sector groups, often heavily dependent on voluntary labour, have cottoned on to yet, Mrs Clere says.
How many of us volunteer, and how often, is also changing.
The number of volunteers has remained static for several years. The latest NZGSS, however, shows a slight decline in the percentage of the population that volunteers.
The same survey also reveals the lowest rate of volunteering is in Auckland and the highest rate is in the cental and western North Island, followed by the South Island excluding Canterbury.
A more portentous shift, however, is a sharp decline in the number of hours spent in volunteer activities.
While about as many people as ever were volunteering, Statistics New Zealand's Time Use Survey showed that in the decade to 2009 the amount of time they gave halved.
''The essence of volunteering is that people give of themselves. For them to be able to do this, it needs to fit into their lifestyle,'' Ms Goodhew says.
And that lifestyle, for many, is increasingly frenetic and time-poor.
''Volunteers now tend to like short, episodic involvement,'' Mrs Clere confirms.
Responding to that trend, VSA has been offering shorter volunteer assignments for the past two years.
''It's more career and family-friendly ... The numbers have started to go up,'' Ms Nichol says.
In the past year, VSA volunteers undertook 166 assignments in nine Pacific countries.
Short-term assignments are the mainstay of So They Can's volunteering programme.
During the month Mr Rogers and Mitchell will be in Africa, about 25 other volunteers, mostly from New Zealand and Australia, will spend a week in each of Kenya and Tanzania on ''working bees'' at the charity's two project sites.
In Nakuru, Mr Rogers will be busy overseeing the ongoing construction of another classroom, a sports field, a school hall, toilet blocks and another water bore. He will also work on setting up a business producing chicken feed that will employ locals and help fund the orphanage and school.
Who knows what else might come up. Last time, he ended up building a house for a family living in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp.
''I drove past a girl about my daughter's age carrying sticks on her back,'' Mr Rogers explained.
''I stopped and asked if I could take her photo.''
He wanted to give something in return, so offered the equivalent of $NZ14.
''She started crying. When I asked why, she said she lived in the IDP camp with her unwell mother, two siblings and several others.''
Home for the nine of them was a patchwork tarpaulin tent with a mud floor.
Mr Rogers asked a local what he could do to help, and was told the best thing would be to build them a house.
''So our family built their family a house. Though we'd call it a shed,'' he said.
''People in the camp constructed it in one day. It has a concrete floor, corrugated iron walls and roof, and a tank collects rainwater.''
One of the hardest things about being there is the level of need, he says.
''You know you could fix their lives with the stroke of a pen. But you can't because where would you stop? It has to be done through the right channels.''
While the evident need is a strong motivator for Mr Rogers, New Zealanders' selflessness appears to be gradually losing the battle with the other demands and desires of 21st-century life.
If those were the only forces at work, the future of volunteering would be uncertain.
But perhaps, if we are honest, what truly gives volunteering its enduring pulling power - and is likely to keep it afloat even in today's hedonistic, time-pressured maelstrom - is not what we give but what we get.
The second and third most common reasons given by people for registering with Volunteering Otago are ''developing a new skill'' and ''meeting new people''.
As VSA's Ms Nichol puts it, volunteering is ''an opportunity to have an adventure and to expand their horizons, and of course it's a chance to transform lives, including their own''.
''Most volunteers say they get more from the experience than they give,'' she says.
''They learn new skills and develop self-confidence, patience and adaptability.''
The effect on Mr Rogers is obvious. Despite the risks, challenges and hardships, it is clear the personal impact of his volunteering has been fundamental, and welcome.
It is shaping him and his choices. He has become a trustee of So They Can. This second trip to Kenya is unlikely to be the last.
''I've heard from lots of people that once you go to Africa it gets inside you and you can't shake it,'' he says.
Mr Rogers got a tattoo when he was last in Nakuru; a literal expression of how his time there had got under his skin.
The tattoo is an outline of the continent with the words ''Where you live should not determine whether you live''.
''It was too big an event not to lock it in somehow,'' he says.
