Boston Volunteer Projects (Part One) October 1, 2010

The USA has a lot of great social programs for its residents and citizens. Run by NGOs, government agencies, and various non-profits, social programs thrive with help of volunteers. Boston is one of the most cosmopolitan and liberal cities in the U.S. and has hundreds of social programs run every year. Refugees and political asylums come to Boston from all over the world; their first goal is to learn English so they may get a job as soon as possible. Volunteers are needed to serve in the classrooms to help refugees with vocational English.

Help is also needed in working with low-income retired people who live their everyday life in the nursing home.

Refuge work

You will have access to an array of teaching tools, including computers for you to utilize on a one-on-one basis or in small or large groups. Your tasks may include teaching how to schedule an interview using the telephone, how to interview for a job, practicing customer service at the cash register or in a restaurant, or helping refugees search and apply for jobs online. 

Remember that it is very difficult for some refugees to assimilate to new culture without the knowledge of the English language. Their lack of the English language will not prevent refugees from getting jobs completely, but it definitely limits the kind of job they can get when they first arrive. Apply to volunteer at JVS.

Social Work with Elders

You will be working with elderly people in a low-income elderly residence where the oldest is 103 years old.   Some of the residents have no family, and it gets very lonely. Your responsibilities will be to entertain them, play games (bingo, word games, checkers, etc.), do arts and crafts, sing songs, make them feel less lonely, and perhaps have them share their life stories with you and vice versa. Find opportunities at the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Your City Cares Non-profit September 29, 2010

Boston Cares was founded in 1991 by six young adults who were determined to find a way to make community service a part of their busy lives. Like many of their friends, they wanted to become meaningfully involved in their communities but didn’t know how to get started. Plus, they worried their unpredictable schedules would not allow for the level of commitment organizations might require.

They worked together to find non-profit organizations that could utilize the help of volunteers on a flexible basis, with the goal of creating a calendar of volunteer opportunities to send out to their friends. And so, starting with a calendar of only 2 service projects, Boston Cares was launched. Today, Boston Cares’ volunteer opportunities exceed 200 projects each month.

Boston Cares offers a wide array of programs and opportunities that make it easy for you to volunteer no matter how busy your schedule is. In 2009, more than 23,000 Boston Cares volunteers contributed 64,000 hours to 180 non-profits in the Greater Boston area. Projects include:

- planting community gardens,
- serving meals to the homeless,
- cleaning parks,
- painting community centers,
- tutoring children,
- caring for sheltered animals,
- ushering at cultural performances,
- and much, much more.

In 1989, President George H.W. Bush invoked the vision of a Thousand Points of Light, a constellation of change agents that make our communities and democracy work. That vision to promote and cultivate volunteer engagement gave birth to a federally authorized, independent nonprofit entity called the Points of Light Foundation.

At about the same time, volunteers were gathering in living rooms and taverns in places like Atlanta and New York to create new ways for people to volunteer. This grassroots, entrepreneurial movement became known as Hands On Network and for almost, two decades these two organizations worked independently, alternatively collaborating and competing, to engage volunteers.

On August 1, 2007, Points of Light Foundation and Hands on Network decided to join forces and merged into a single organization with a shared vision and a shared set of goals.

The new organization, now called Points of Light Institute, is implementing a bold new strategy to create unprecedented scale and people-centered community impact through volunteerism and civic involvement.

US Largest Volunteer Organization September 28, 2010

Red Cross is the nation’s largest humanitarian organization led by volunteers (900,000), who comprise 96% of American Red Cross workforce. One out of 43 Americans is a Red Cross supporter. In 2006 the organization celebrated its 125th anniversary.

Red Cross is led by its president and CEO, who reports to the Board of Governors (BOG). There are 50 Board of Governors, all volunteers, who convene 4 times a year to set  policy for the entire organization. The Chairman of the American Red Cross is appointed by the President of the United States. Red Cross is a non-profit organization which is not funded by the government. There are 800 chapters in the country. Red Cross’s major services include: Biomedical (blood collection), Service to the Armed forces, Health and Safety, Disaster and International.

The American Red Cross of Massachusetts Bay is headquartered in Cambridge and has locations in Boston, Brockton, Fall River, Haverhill, New Bedford, Peabody, Quincy, and Waltham that serve as local sites for community programs, volunteer recruitment, and disaster preparedness and response.

To find open volunteer opportunities please go to the Red Cross website. Volunteers are needed in various areas, especially in Disaster relief. “Red Cross disaster relief focuses on meeting people’s immediate emergency disaster-caused needs. When a disaster threatens or strikes (fire, flood, etc.), the Red Cross provides shelter, food, and health and mental health services to address basic human needs”.

 All Red Cross disaster assistance is free and available to all, which is made possible by voluntary donations of time and money from the American people.

What makes Red Cross so successful in utilizing volunteers? They have a great website with many volunteer opportunities. Their response time is quick and they provide competitive training (in class and on-line), and they take volunteers year-round on flexible terms.

Join Women Who Care 2010

 

Date: Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Registration: 7:30 AM

Breakfast Program: 8:00 AM – 9:30 AM

Location: The Westin Copley Place 

Volunteering and Fundraising in Social Media September 24, 2010

As I was pondering the best possible website to connect people to the volunteer projects and NGOs, I found several good ones that are ongoing or work in progress. First of all, I learned about Mashable.com and its Social Good Summit that took place in NYC this week. The article How the Web can be harnessed for Social Good tells about the power of crowd fundraising on-line via group pages or Facebook/Causes application. There are also numerous meet-ups with humanitarian/philanthropical agenda.

I was looking at the Idealist, that has been around for a long time and just announced its upcoming makeover. They are going to change their interface and become more people oriented. 

Ed Norton came up with his own social media platform called Crowdrise, where you get to create your own project and fundraise for it. When you do it well not only that you get points and prizes but your own title like Dr, Tsar or Sir/Madam. It is very interactive but it is focused more on fundraising than on volunteering.

Another fundraising site ProFounder is being launched by the founder of Kiva. ProFounder is basically ”crowdfunding for your business” or non-profit.

My favorite so far is the idea presented by Facebook Co-Founder Chris Hughes during the Summit. Chris said he is working on creating social network specifically for connecting people to non-profit organizations. What I like about it is that he is building a FB application to allow people to  follow their favorite projects and support them in a way they feel comfortable: whether it is fundraising, word of mouth/Internet advertising or volunteering. Check this out Jumo.

And finally there is a way for all OLPC volunteers to meet, as there is another OLPC Volunteer Summit happening in October 22-24 in San Fran. Feel free to register at http://olpcsf.org/CommunitySummit2010/

Costa Rica Volunteer Project September 22, 2010

Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a country with variety of flora and fauna. Forests and jungles cover almost half of its total area and approximately quarter of the territory is being protected.

However, the country faces high levels of deforestation. Dozens of species disappear from the Earth every day in part as a result of wildlife trafficking, which is ranked as the third largest illegal business in the world. Ecological disasters such as forest fires continue to consume thousands of acres of natural land (just alone in 2008 the flames swept away 23,000 acres) and threaten the health of communities in the area. You will have an opportunity to participate in conservation, research and education projects. You can help conserve national parks and nature reserves, protect sea turtles, or teach English in schools to surrounding communities.

Parks and Reserves

You will have the opportunity to support the work of park rangers and officials responsible for promoting the conservation and sustainability of the biodiversity in the country. Rangers and officials work with the support of national authorities to prevent hunting, fishing, and illegal logging, as well as the extraction and trade of flora and fauna. In addition, volunteers assist with special activities such as protection of the scarlet macaw, control of tourism in National Parks, seizures of illegal timber and others.

Teaching English

Volunteers will teach English in schools that are near National Parks and Reserves. English skills will help them communicate with tourists and get employment in conservation projects. You will have to teach environmental education and how to incorporate social change and advocacy into every day life for the locals.
Sea Turtle Project

The main objective is to assess and protect the sea turtle population that nests in Costa Rica’s Pacific beaches.

Every night from June to December, the project has been protecting the sea turtle nests that are deposited on the beach. So far it has been determined that significant threats are the looting by the locals and high tides, which cause harm to the nests, and hatching process.

There have been various methods of mitigation implemented while also relocating some of the nests to the nursery or the sites considered safe at the beach.

Volunteers are also needed to help prevent looting and predation, regulate disorganized visitations by tourists, reduce the amount of vehicular traffic, artificial lighting, and reduce the accumulation of trash on the beach.

To learn more about the projects, go to  http://asvocr.org/. Application fee is $35 and daily cost (acommodation plus food) is $20.  If interested, contact Luis Mataritta at lmatarrita@asvocr.org.

Wildlife Conservation in South Africa September 15, 2010

My friend Ian Guthrie was the first one who told me about volunteering. Of course, I knew about volunteers for years, but he was the first one who told me about his experience helping with lemur research in Madagascar. He sent me pictures of little primates being fed, measured, monitored, etc. I remember registering the fact that he did it because he really likes animals and it was a super exciting trip for him even though he had to pay to do it.

Ian started working as a programmer for AOL right after high school, got his Associate degree, and kept working for 10 years before he left AOL and moved from DC area to Boulder, Colorado. Today he works for a company that is doing an online Lego game and that is where Lego is headquartered. You can check out the company and some of the games they produce here: http://www.netdevil.com/ Ian is a great hacker, but has other interests, like reading books about WWII, visiting battle sites and traveling. He is an avid hiker, biker, and of course he loves nature and animals!

Ian just got back from South Africa, where he volunteered in a game reserve. He was helping to monitor wildlife and learn about wildlife conservation.
“My original interest in doing the trip was to be able to work with the African Wild Dog. The organization that hosted the trip was one of the only ones I found that allowed volunteers to do this. Since the trip sounded very interesting and somewhat exciting, that was enough to get me to sign up.

The adventure started when I landed at my final destination. I met my three travel companions who also signed up for the trip, and then eventually our guide.
We then headed to town to pickup supplies (cookies, etc) and then on to the game reserve where we would spend the next two weeks tracking some of the big predators in the park, and possibly some other wildlife such as Elephants.”
His full story with pictures is here http://www.sifakaphoto.com/southafrica/southafrica.html

Guatemala Volunteer Project (Part One) September 13, 2010

Are you tired of sitting at your desk? Do you want to be outside and do something meaningful like building houses? If yes, then the following project is right for you.

Guatemala

Guatemala is a beautiful country, but among the poorest of the Americas with more than half of the population living in poverty. The income of many Guatemalans only allows for a day-to-day existence with just enough money for the basic necessities of life. Guatemala is prone to natural disasters like tropical storms that make life even harder for poor people who lose everything as a result of the flooding which causes a lot of damage and deaths.

For a large part of the population, health conditions are poor and living conditions are dreadful. You will have the opportunity to improve the life of a disadvantaged Guatemalan family through building of new homes.

Construction Work

You will build houses in groups of four to six. You need no special qualifications and the labor will be divided according to physical strength. Houses are built by paid local building workers and their assistants. The beneficiary family also helps build with at least one member of the family. Construction volunteers and the family members work with and under the direction of the masons.

For volunteers, the work consists of digging foundations, carrying materials including concrete block, sand and rocks, mixing concrete, and generally helping the masons in their tasks. It takes approximately two weeks to build a complete house. We encourage volunteers to work for a minimum of two weeks in order to be part of constructing a complete home. The construction sites vary considerably, dependent on rural or community settings and the general context of the family. Generally, construction volunteers are placed in the Antigua area. Volunteers of all ages are welcome.

This program is open year round. $400 fee is required for construction material. Accomodation and food are cheap and could be as low as $70 per week. If  interested, contact Stephan for details. Learn more about ConstruCasa.

Cambodia Volunteer Project September 11, 2010

Cambodia

Cambodia is a country that has been in recovery from war.  The Khmer Rouge ruled for 4 years, but the consequences were horrifying: two million out of seven million people were killed. The majority of those who were killed were educators and the government staff.  In 1979 the opposition group of Khmer fled to Vietnam and got support from the Vietnamese troops. The opposition toppled the Khmer Rouge out of power and have been running the country since.

Most Cambodians are farmers and illiterate.  After the war, farmers found they could not support themselves on farms because the farm land is limited. Farmers cannot send their children to high school or technical college because they are poor and the schools are far away.  If children learn English, they can look for jobs in the cities, and decrease their dependency on their parents working the farms.  As a volunteer, you can help rural students to improve their lives by teaching them English.

Teaching English and XOs

The school of 300 children is located in a farm village not far from Siem Reap. It is the poorest village in the area.  Before the village school was built, children had to walk 5 km to the nearest school.  Volunteers are welcome to teach children English.  There are two shifts at school, so you will be teaching either in the morning or in the afternoon, preferably both. No teaching experience is necessary. Teaching basic vocabulary and conversational skills are most important. There are several OLPC computers at the school, no training is provided currently. Volunteers are needed year-round, they will need to pay for housing and food. If interested email Sarith at sarith_ou@yahoo.com.

http://khmerschool.com/Site/Progress12.html.