Skip to main content

Volunteer From Your Computer!

By Literacy 'n' Poverty Project
If you, like many, would like to do more to serve local and international communities through volunteerism, but don’t have the money to travel or lots of time to commit, I recently came across another great way of contributing – right from your own computer!


The UN has launched the United Nations Online Volunteering Service. This great service connects online volunteers with organizations working around the world for sustainable human development. According to the site:

‘Volunteers contribute their skills online to help organizations address development challenges. Organizations collaborate with online volunteers over the internet to strengthen the impact of their development work.’


You can search on the site for volunteer opportunities by your own skills, topics you are interested in such as education or health, or by a region of the world. A quick search on the site gave me multiple opportunities to contribute my skills very easily over my computer. I chose to search by my own skill, writing and editing, which produced 33 results – from editing reports for an organization in Syria, to helping write grant proposals for orgs in West Africa.


If you are looking to volunteer but can’t afford the traditional methods –online volunteering could be a great way to get involved with organizations and issues around the world that you care about!

This post was written by Katherine Osgood, Director of International Programs at United Planet. Katherine has her own blog focusing on women’s rights issues and is a volunteer blogger with Literacy ‘n’ Poverty Project.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Wow, Katherine! This is really cool, especially if you're like me and don't have a car to get around to volunteer sites. Thanks for posting, hopefully I can find something on there too!
March 11, 2009
Katherine Osgood said…
Thanks Leah! It has been a great opportunity for many of my friends to connect with communities around the world! Good luck and I hope you find something!
March 16, 2009
HelpFromHome said…
Have you also tried Help From Home's website http://www.helpfromhome.org/ which claims that you can do volunteering dressed just in your pyjamas. The opportunities appear to be different to those ones mentioned on the UN site.
June 13, 2009

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is the Literacy Rate of the US?

By Literacy 'n' Poverty Project
The World Factbook , prepared by the CIA , states that the US literacy rate is around 99%. This means that around 3 million people in America are unable to functionally read and write . That is equivalent to the entire population of Mongolia! As if those numbers weren’t enough to make you sit up and think, there is some dispute about the 99% - the actual figure could be lower, depending on the various definitions of literacy used. Jonathan Kozol, in his book ‘Illiterate America’ states that the government based the 99% literacy rate on interviews and written responses to Census Bureau mailings from a small portion of the population. Of that portion, if the responders or interviewees had completed fifth grade they were considered literate. About 5% had not completed fifth grade , but 80% of those were subsequently considered literate, and so the Bureau reached a conclusion of a 99% literacy rate. In 1993 a new study was released . Over 5 years, and $14 million spent ( the largest lite...
1 comment
Read more

We Stopped Blogging and Got Serious About Our Future

By Chanelle
It's been over four months since we last posted to this blog! While it breaks our heart to have been out of touch for so long, we had good reason. You see, our blog is run by volunteers of the Literacy 'n' Poverty Project. LnP is a social initiative I started that addresses multiple aspects of literacy - health, reading, writing and financial - to empower the poor and low-income adults to lift themselves up out of poverty . But, if you've been keeping up with our blog which we know you all have :), you can see that adult education has not been the focus. And rightfully so. How We Got Started Make Social Change A Reality was created as a venue to discuss various issues concerning the broader concept of social change from the environment to women's issues to healthcare to youth development . As a startup with goals of becoming an international social enterprise, we felt that y'all deserved a place of your own to learn, engage and share information and resources...
4 comments
Read more

The Meaning of Social Change

By Literacy 'n' Poverty Project
All around us, there are changes happening; the calendar changed from 2008 to 2009, a new president was elected, and for many us, we have decided to do things differently and make changes in our diet, our lifestyles, or in our overall well being. Social change is something that I plan to be involved with this year in many different ways: volunteering , reading, attending events and sharing ideas. Social change means different things to different people. To me, social change means being involved in making things better for your community. Doing something instead of just saying something. Raising money instead of just donating to a cause. Working with others to make sure that the change we desire is attainable. I have been involved with a variety of organizations that make social change a focus of their organization. This is important to me because I am a firm believer that through social change and helping each other and supporting one another, we as a people can right all...
Post a Comment
Read more