On today’s International Volunteer Day, we honour the commitment of those who dedicate their free time to helping others. In Austria, this amounts to around 3.7 million people – thus, nearly every second person aged 15 and older engages in voluntary, unpaid work, according to current figures from Statistics Austria. Emergency and rescue organisations also benefit greatly from this commitment – voluntary paramedics and firefighters, for example, are an indispensable pillar of emergency response and disaster management.

Several of our DCNA colleagues have also been volunteering for many years – today, we would like to put a spotlight on them:

• Isabel Anger has been working as a voluntary paramedic with the Red Cross Styria since 2017 and takes on a voluntary night shift every week. This year, she additionally started volunteering in crisis intervention.
  
  
• Richard Halatschek volunteers with the Fire Brigade at Graz University of Technology, where he works in the fields of robotics, amateur radio and radiation protection.
  
  
• Sandra Maria Pichler has been a volunteer paramedic at the Austrian Red Cross (Trieben) since 2024, and has been active in psychosocial emergency care with KIT Styria since 2017.
  
  
• Hannes Kern has been a member of the Volunteer Fire Brigade Vorau for more than 30 years, serves as the State Special Representative for International Disaster Assistance in the Styrian Fire Service Association, is the commander of the Hazardous Materials Unit in Eastern Styria, and training officer of the Volunteer Fire Brigade Vorau. He is also a technical expert and trainer in the European Civil Protection Mechanism.
  
  
• Christian Resch has been engaged in the fire brigade since the age of 10.

A heartfelt thank you to all volunteers!