When a new volunteer arrives at Christian Appalachian Project, he (or more likely, she) will notice a bit of a gender imbalance among the volunteer ranks. Currently, 18, or 35%, of our 51 long-term volunteers are male. Sometimes, the imbalance is a source of amusement (one of our male volunteers, who is the only male in his particular volunteer house, renamed the men's bathroom "the man's room"). But at other times, such as during summer camp, the shortage of male volunteers can rob our male campers of positive male role models to inspire them to finish school or even serve as camp counselors when they get older. Young volunteers coming straight from college, where they had many strong male friendships, may at times feel isolated in a community that is predominantly female.
The gender inequity problem is not unique to Christian Appalachian Project--men are consistently underrepresented among volunteers making a year-long commitment to faith-based service. Most agree that having a volunteer corps that is more reflective of the general population would strengthen volunteer programs, but the question becomes, why does this imbalance exist in the first place? Obviously, women are not inherently more altruistic than men. Are volunteer programs simply not doing enough to attract men to full-time service? How can we improve? We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section. CAP long-term volunteer Tim H. offers his perspective here.
Whatever the reason, we want to change this imbalance, but we need your help. If you're a guy who is looking for an exciting and challenging service opportunity, we're looking for you. In particular, we need camp counselors for the summer and people looking to get their hands dirty repairing homes in our Housing program. Full-time service is not easy: the hours are long and the pay is nonexistent, but your service is needed, and we hope you'll accept the challenge.
