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Online Volunteering Award 2007
- African Conservation Foundation Team
- Bureau for Reconstruction and Development Team
- Community Empowerment Collective Team
- Conscious Generation Team
- Lawyers Without Borders Team
- MAPU Association Team
- RESPECT Team
- Shine a Light Team
- UNDP International Poverty Centre Team
- Youth for Technology Foundation Team
African Conservation Foundation Team
Contribution to MDG7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Millennium Campaign: "No Excuses, Promises Must be Kept"
The African Conservation Foundation (ACF) works towards the protection and conservation of Africa's endangered wildlife and their habitats. By sharing their technical expertise in geographic information systems and remote sensing, the online volunteers Lauriane Cayet and Magali Moreau contributed to the conservation of rainforest and the protection of critically endangered populations of great apes in South West Cameroon.
Driven by their commitment to environmental issues and their strong ties to the African continent, Magali and Lauriane collected, processed and analyzed satellite images and radar data related to the project area. Meticulous task planning and close coordination were key elements for the effective collaboration across time zones between Lauriane, Magali and the director of ACF, Arend de Haas.
The baseline geographic data they developed helped ACF identify the threats to and opportunities for the conservation of the great apes in South West Cameroon. It laid the basis for the development of effective conservation strategies and of a community model for the co-management of the forest area, through a participatory process with local stakeholders. The volunteers also produced maps of forest cover and forest-cover change that helped visualize where rainforest was disappearing in the study area. Besides being an effective tool for awareness-raising and long-term monitoring, the forest-cover information increased local capacities and enabled informed decision-making.
Lauriane: “Our online collaboration is going beyond the online assignments. I have become the contact person for ACF in an environmental think tank I work for. I think the online volunteering service is an incredible opportunity to create organizational partnerships and link people together to benefit human development.”
View team picture in the Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award 2007 picture gallery.
Bureau for Reconstruction and Development Team
Contribution to achieving MDG 8: Develop a global partnership for development
Millennium Campaign: "No Excuses, Promises Must be Kept"
Sharing her skills in strategic business planning, project/team management and proposal development, online volunteer Yin Mei Wong enabled the Bureau for Reconstruction and Development (BRD) to enhance its organizational capacities and the quality of its services in the areas of human rights and capacity building of civil society organizations, local NGOs and government in Afghanistan.
Yin Mei’s involvement started with the task of online volunteer manager over a year ago, to build BRD’s community of online volunteers. Since then, she has taken on further responsibilities. Providing on-going expertise and advice to BRD, she assisted in defining its strategy and designed action plans towards its implementation, guided the development of project proposals and facilitated networking with other development organizations. She developed and executed marketing and promotion strategies, and helped write marketing and communication materials such as the annual report and training brochures. Finally, she coordinated online volunteers’ support to the redesign of BRD’s website and the production of further marketing tools such as BRD’s newsletter.
BRD believes that Yin Mei’s contributions have helped build the capacity of the organization to secure and deliver its development projects and goals: “Yin Mei and the other online volunteers have helped us get linked to the world. We are very comfortable now when we are communicating with external and internal donors: we are easily giving them reference about who we are and what we do, or sharing our documents with them. We are receiving many offers from other organizations for partnership and collaboration, when they visit our website,” says the Program Director, Mr. Khan Agha Dawoodzai, who closely collaborated with Yin Mei. Meetings between the two were conducted online via Skype chats. Occasionally, they used phone calls for progress updates and to develop a more personal relationship.
Yin Mei: “Through my work with BRD, I learnt about the culture, way of life and the struggles of local Afghans. Issues that I have been dealing with have deepened my understanding of the challenges faced by an NGO in the country. Online volunteering has also added a new dimension to how I apply my skills and has deepened my interest in development work.“
View team picture in the Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award 2007 picture gallery.
Community Empowerment Collective Team
Contribution to achieving MDG1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Millennium Campaign: "No Excuses, Promises Must be Kept"
154 online volunteers helped the Community Empowerment Collective (CEC) Society, a Canadian organization entirely made up of online volunteers, to make available training material for community workers in more than 30 languages, and thus contributed to CEC’s aim to empower low-income communities, particularly in least-developed countries.
Most online volunteers work on translating the training material. They are organized in groups around translations into the same language, each with its own coordinator. The coordinator passes completed pages on to Phil Bartle, the organization’s representative, who posts them to the CEC website. Some online volunteers are developing training material to add to the site, mostly on issues identified or requested by users, or create drawings to illustrate the material. Others support the strategic direction of the organization by serving on the board, or function as advisors both for the board and for answering specific questions from users of the site. Finally, some online volunteers provide technical support with the updating of the website and one online volunteer puts together a periodic newsletter to sum up progress on the site for all the volunteers
The coordinators have made a conscious effort to build teams in which online volunteers get in touch with each other and work together. CEC’s online volunteers appreciate the strong sense of community across the teams, also fostered by online collaboration tools such as mailing lists, created to circulate updates on new contributions and for discussions related to the work. Some larger language groups have their own lists to discuss translation difficulties and standardize translation conventions. These lists are linked to a web space, which is used by some groups to post interesting documents or links, for example to online dictionaries and language resources.
The team as a whole has achieved a huge success in that the training materials are now accessible to local community workers in a language they can read. While the individual contributions ranged from a single page to dozens of pages, the sum of the parts is impressive and an important contribution towards promoting self reliance, development and strengthening of low income communities to overcome poverty.
Luiz Claudio Correia dos Anjos: ”While translating a text I often wonder where the people who are going to read these lines I write are. What else do they need? What is going to be the impact of my help? Will my work be enough to fulfill their needs or should I go the extra mile?”
View team picture in the Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award 2007 picture gallery.
Conscious Generation Team
Contribution to achieving MDG 8: Develop a global partnership for development
Millennium Campaign: "No Excuses, Promises Must be Kept"
Putting into practice their expertise in civil engineering, project management and proposal writing, a team of 3 online volunteers supported the Burundian grassroots organization Conscious Generation in preparing a proposal for a youth centre, which is currently being reviewed by potential donors for funding.
Requested by disadvantaged youths in the densely populated province of Muramvya, the youth center project will permit Conscious Generation to extend their services in the field of counseling and training to the youth of Muramvya. The youth center will try to stimulate the inter-ethnic dialogue for peace, improve the employability of youths through targeted trainings and facilitate youth exchange and sensitization. The center will thus contribute to the effort of providing assistance to counter the various problems of a region inhabited by young people who every day experience the consequences of war and ethnic violence, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and HIV/AIDS. The suggested project proposal envisages the involvement of youth throughout the whole project process, including construction and management of the youth center.
The online volunteers and Ferdinand Habonimana from Conscious Generation worked closely together, discussing propositions until reaching consensus and keeping each other updated on the progress. Ferdinand feels empowered through this knowledge sharing process: “This was truly a lesson about how to write grant proposals, opening new horizons with view to future projects”, he says.
Deborah Hubscher: “I chose Conscious Generation because the organization aims at creating a stable working and learning environment for the young, and I strongly believe education is the key factor in the development of many African countries. I also liked the idea of using my project experience for a ‘noble’ purpose such as this. I thoroughly enjoyed the team work, and thought we did very well in terms of keeping motivated and delivering, with all members contributing consistently”.
View team picture in the Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award 2007 picture gallery.
Lawyers Without Borders Team
Contribution to achieving MDG 8: Develop a global partnership for development
Millennium Campaign: "No Excuses, Promises Must be Kept"
Designing branding images, online volunteer Bonnie Taher helped Lawyers without Borders (LWOB) of U.S.A. promote the work of their volunteer lawyers worldwide who stand ready to support non-profit organizations, rule of law initiatives, legal capacity building projects and human rights work around the globe.
Bonnie Taher started out copy-editing the organization’s newsletter, but over the last five years she has been key to helping with design work. She created images that support LWOB project models and artistically depict their work within a professional and legally oriented visual framework. She has designed logos and developed graphics for the web site, reflecting program areas. She also designed ID cards for lawyers traveling abroad as trial observers. Via an online portal, Bonnie posts samples of her designs for LWOB to discuss, examine and choose from.
Bonnie’s images helped LWOB reach out to the community and shape a positive image of the organization’s work. “Bonnie‘s contributions have been critical. As lawyers, it is sometimes hard to communicate with images the sense of the commitment, professionalism and volunteer spirit that characterize all of our legally oriented projects,” says Christina Storm, founder of LWOB.
Bonnie Taher: “Online volunteering opens literally a whole world of opportunities for service. Distance has not prevented us from developing a strong collaborative relationship. I feel very much a part of the LWOB team and am committed to supporting its mission.”
View team picture in the Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award 2007 picture gallery
MAPU Association Team
Contribution to MDG7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Millennium Campaign: "No Excuses, Promises Must be Kept"
MAPU Association of Spain aims to support the self-determination of local communities and the protection of human and environmental rights in those communities. 10 online volunteers helped MAPU, which had joined forces with an Argentinean civil movement, the Assembly of self-organized Neighbours against mega mining, to raise international awareness on the consequences of mining projects in Argentina.
The ten online volunteers from different backgrounds and parts of the world translated information related to the environmental, social and economic situation of Argentinean and Latin American communities affected by mining. The texts they translated from Spanish into English and German include press releases, scientific studies and reports. MAPU volunteer coordinators provided live assistance through free Internet calls clarifying technical terms and regionalisms, which allowed the team to deliver accurate translations
The online volunteers’ solidarity effort enabled the young organization MAPU to strengthen its support to the civil movement and the Argentinean communities affected by mining. The translated texts are an important tool for MAPU to extend the campaign to developed countries, raising international awareness about the environmental threats of mining projects and facilitating contact with communities in developing countries affected by mining.
For Fernanda Rojas, the volunteer coordinator, involving online volunteers in this project was an achievement in itself: “The awareness campaign starts with the online volunteers helping us with the translations, since they learn an important deal about the consequences of metal mining; they transmit into their languages the stories and worries of the affected communities, and they become aware about how communities are endangered with this industry.”
Carmina Velasco, El Salvador: “It’s so good to feel that you are helping a great cause. I'm learning new things and how these same issues could be affecting the environment and communities in my country.”
Silke Reichrath, Canada: ”I enjoyed working on a Latin American project because most of my work experience and studies were related to Latin America, and I enjoyed working for a smaller local project trying to support local communities.”
View team picture in the Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award 2007 picture gallery.
RESPECT Team
Contribution to achieving MDG1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; MDG 8: Develop a global partnership for development
Millennium Campaign: "No Excuses, Promises Must be Kept"
The RESPECT University project (Canada) provides refugees and internally displaced persons with an opportunity for personal, academic and community development by offering high school graduates free post-secondary courses by correspondence. The project is run by a team of 30 online volunteers scattered across the globe.
The driving force behind RESPECT University is project coordinator Ashok Pillai. Under the guidance of Marc Schaeffer, president of the organization RESPECT, Ashok founded and expanded the team of online volunteers and coordinates the team members’ contributions. One group of online volunteers is in charge of developing the course and study material and sending assignments to the students, who complete and submit them to their tutors for feedback. Courses include ‘Organizing and Managing Small and Medium Enterprises’, ‘Democracy’, ’Early Childhood Development’ and ‘Basic Principles of Accounting’. The two other groups conduct outreach activities, targeting university departments and alumni associations with the aim of recruiting more volunteer teachers, and promoting RESPECT University courses amongst refugee organizations in Africa and the Middle East to increase the number of potential beneficiaries.
Within one year, the number of students benefiting from RESPECT University education has grown from 10 to more than 100 students. Students in refugee camps in countries like Uganda, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ghana, Tanzania and Azerbaijan not only benefit from the additional qualifications they gain through these courses from qualified tutors, but also from the connection to a person beyond their refugee environment. As for their own communities, these directly benefit from the knowledge and skills used by the students in their daily work. Key to the success of the online volunteers’ work is the excellent team spirit, fostered by an environment in which everyone is encouraged to develop, share and openly discuss ideas, also through the online space created for this purpose.
Veronica Patience Fynn: “As a refugee myself, I find it rewarding to give something back to refugee women and children.”
Dr. Raphael Sadiwa: “When my students tell me that they find the course very helpful in their day to day activities with children, there is a sense in myself that what I did truly benefited someone else.”
Kenneth Donahue: “My work with RESPECT and the correspondence I have had with these truly amazing students has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I look forward to my continued work with RESPECT, touching the lives of refugees, and being touched by their lives.”
View team picture in the Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award 2007 picture gallery.
Shine a Light Team
Contribution to achieving MDG1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Millennium Campaign: "No Excuses, Promises Must be Kept"
A team of 7 online volunteers translated material created by 300 grass-roots organizations serving marginalized children in Latin America. These organizations form part of the Shine a Light network which aims to facilitate knowledge-sharing amongst its members. As these work in a number of languages, from Portuguese and Spanish to Aymara and Tzotzil, the online volunteers’ contributions are key to the network’s mission.
The online volunteers from 7 different countries edited and translated the texts, exercises, films, and interviews of five DVD-based courses which document NGO best practices. They translated two virtual books, on peacemaking in shantytowns controlled by gangs, and on using children’s movies as an educational tool. They helped review and re-translate the entire Shine a Light website, a rich resource base that consists of 3,000 pages. Finally, thanks to the online volunteers who translated from Portuguese street argot into English, community workers worldwide can learn from the songs of a rap album composed, recorded, and performed entirely by children from the streets and favelas of Brazil.
By editing and translating these materials, they enable knowledge-sharing between NGOs, educators and community workers in Latin America and around the world, giving them access to the experience and expertise of the network’s members. “Shine a Light has made a huge impact on the lives of children in Latin America, both by increasing the capacity of grass-roots NGOs and by reforming public policy, but we would never have been able to do it without the help of online volunteers,” says Kurt Shaw, director of Shine a Light, to describe the impact of the online volunteers’ contributions.
Ludmila Cieszkowsky: “Volunteering with this particular organization gave me a better understanding of Brazilian street-kids' minds. As I translated their songs, I was able to empathize with their fears, uncertainties and hopes. It also increased my determination to finish school and use my education to help other kids in other parts of the world.”
Sara Gomes: “I have started volunteering with Shine a Light for over 4 years. It was very interesting to know more about different ways of working with children and young people. As a participation worker at an English children’s charity, the knowledge I acquired by working with Shine a Light was essential to develop much of my work.”
View team picture in the Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award 2007 picture gallery.
UNDP International Poverty Centre Team
Contribution to achieving MDG1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Millennium Campaign: "No Excuses, Promises Must be Kept"
The International Poverty Centre (IPC) is a global centre for applied research and training on poverty. It specifically aims to expand developing countries' knowledge and capacities to design and implement nationally-owned poverty reduction strategies. 23 online volunteers from 17 countries built the IPC directory of 2,800 research centres worldwide dealing with poverty and social development. The result is a key tool for fostering South-South cooperation and knowledge sharing, particularly among developing countries.
“This directory of poverty research centers covers all UN-member states and is probably one of the most complete directories in the world,” says Francisco Filho of the IPC, who coordinated the online volunteers’ efforts.
This directory is an instrument to advance the dialogue towards the reduction of poverty. Because it is available to a global audience on the IPC website, the directory enhances international cooperation and knowledge sharing among researchers and policy makers in the field of poverty reduction. In addition, the online volunteers contributed to IPC’s increased outreach, enabling the centre to disseminate its publications, as well as information on training programmes, workshops and research projects, to researchers and stakeholders from all over the world.
From the outset of the assignment, the volunteers worked as a team. They divided the work amongst each other; each volunteer chose a set of countries and researched and liaised with the most relevant institutions in each country. Then they compiled the information before sharing their work with the IPC. “The result was extraordinary and could only be achieved by involving online volunteers,” said Francisco.
Mania Mirsli: “Being part of a multicultural team that is spread around the globe was a unique experience. It’s an indescribable feeling to work with people you have never met and to accomplish even a small beneficial thing for the people on this planet, especially the ones in need.”
Sabria Regragui Mazili: "However tiny my contribution might be given the scale of issues the host organizations deal with, it’s something practical that they need to get done, and if I can do that for them - well, that’s fantastic!”
View team picture in the Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award 2007 picture gallery.
Youth for Technology Foundation Team
Contribution to achieving MDG 8: Develop a global partnership for development
Millennium Campaign: "No Excuses, Promises Must be Kept"
6 online volunteers whose professional and educational backgrounds range from IT consultancy over design to media management played an instrumental role in the establishment of the Youth for Technology Foundation’s Sironko Digital Village, a community technology and learning center in rural Uganda that aims to empower youth to affect changes in their community using ICT tools.
Complementing the efforts of YTF’s onsite volunteers, online volunteers helped define a strategy that ensures the center’s sustainability and provides for the possibility of its replication in other countries. They advised on official CBO status, organizational structure and financial management. They made recommendations on networking equipment, internet connection and providers, online facilities and electricity supply. They developed strategies for training courses, entrepreneur incubation and income generation. They created a webpage, developed marketing material, researched potential donors, managed a contacts database of supporters and conducted outreach campaigns, all of which contributed to the mobilization of programmatic support and of 30 laptops for the center as well as to strong partnerships.
Njideka Harry, YTF’s Executive Director, ensured that there was frequent communication between all the volunteers, online and onsite, and everyone understood their role in the big picture. The center was successfully launched in July 2007 - besides being a place for young people to gather and learn about their community and the world, the main aim of the center is to provide technology-related training for young people to use at their workplace.
Recognizing the online volunteers’ contributions, Njideka says: “Technology in the hands of highly skilled and highly committed online volunteers has allowed YTF to achieve results that wouldn’t have been possible with our on-site program alone. Involving online volunteers, YTF has not only fulfilled its mission to bridge the digital divide, but we have also actively bridged the cultural divide as well.”
Danielle Brunin: “This online volunteering experience had an important impact on my life because I feel as though I am able to make a difference in the world and use my skills, even though I’m not on the ground in the areas where the Youth for Technology Foundation operates. It allows me to genuinely feel as though I am part of the world community.”
View team picture in the Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award 2007 picture gallery.
