We have asked you previously to film yourself reading a children’s story, to be watched by children at all the schools and community centres we support. We would now like your help to produce a different kind of story – on Powerpoint. Click here to see the full slide show as an example: Our partners in Cambodia and The Gambia love the story videos – but they love the Powerpoint stories too and use them in a very different way. …
Do you enjoy reading and discussing the books you have read with friends? Are you one of the many people who have held your book club meetings online during lockdown? If so, you could be just the person we are looking for! Our partners in South Africa have come up with a brilliant suggestion for an e-volunteer placement. They already run reading circles for their staff, and they would love to meet a volunteer who would link up with them…
Just like a traditional volunteer placement, e-volunteering covers a wide range of formats – anything from making a simple to story video to a 12 week link-up with local people to share your skills. Listen to some of our e-volunteers talking about the work they have done. If you are interested in an e-volunteer placement take a look here: https://e-volunteer.co.uk/
We have always held regular volunteer socials – a way for volunteers to meet us, each other and any of our local partners able to attend. But what to do during lockdown? Like everything else, we decide to move our social events online – and what a successful move this turned out to be! ‘A very positive afternoon. It achieved what it set out to do, allowing those familiar with the projects to delve a little deeper and express their…
The start of the vaccine roll-out! Of course, like everyone else, we are delighted and keeping our fingers crossed that all goes to plan and volunteers can start travelling again later this year. But that certainly will not mean the end of our e-volunteer programme. When we started creating opportunities for people to volunteer from home during 2020 it was of course in response to the pandemic – could we find a viable and useful way for volunteers to offer…
It’s January, the time of year when many people’s minds turn to travel plans – maybe a holiday – or maybe a volunteer placement! At the moment many people are ‘travelling the world’ via their computer screens – and you can volunteer in this way too without leaving the comfort and safety of your own front room. Visiting a tourist destination by viewing it online could accurately be described as ‘virtual travel’ – there’s no physical travelling involved. Similarly an…
A couple of weeks ago I decided to fill an idle couple of hours on a rainy Sunday afternoon filming a video which we could send to the education projects supported by people and places volunteers. Quite a lot of volunteers have contributed to this initiative – we have videos of stories, demonstrations of simple Science experiments, even a walk round a farm to show children the animals. But so far we didn’t have a video of a volunteer actually…
In the six months since the pandemic struck a number of volunteers have been working with us to try out various ways of volunteering from home. Some had previously volunteered and were keen to continue supporting ‘their’ project in what were clearly going to be difficult times. Some had placements already arranged and were keen to start volunteer work even though they couldn’t yet travel. Some thought their volunteering days were behind them and were delighted to see a way…
The pandemic is causing challenges for all of us – here’s an update from many of the programmes we work with about how they are trying to meet these challenges – from marathon cycle rides to emergency water supplies (imagine trying to wash your hands when there is no water!) Eswatini (Swaziland) The Neighbourhood Care Points in Eswatini are currently being used as feeding stations – the children go there every day for food which they take home to share…
We are delighted to report that we have a volunteer currently on placement at Hazyview in South Africa. Having feared that we would be unable to place anyone at all during the pandemic and with no idea when long-haul international travel will start up again, we were delighted when Richard approached us to say that he was actually in South Africa and could we create a placement for him. As the Digital Learning Centres run by our partners Good Work…