Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 1:08 PM ET
On Tuesday night we had the pleasure of hosting Idealist's Global Volunteering Fair here at our D.C. office, where over 600 students, young professionals and others came to learn about and discuss opportunities to volunteer abroad.
The event was co-sponsored by the Building Bridges Coalition and the Brookings Institution's Initiative on International Volunteering and Service, and 26 organizations came to share their opportunities. Attendees were also treated to workshops on "International Volunteerism 101," "Affordable Volunteering Abroad," and "Google 101 for International Volunteers."
Make sure to check out tonight's fair in New York or Saturday's fair in Boston if you happen to live near either city.
Thanks to Idealist for the opportunity to host such a cool event, and make sure to keep an eye on idealist.org for more opportunities to work and volunteer in the non-profit community.
Photos: Idealist
4 comments:
The event looks like a success! I wish I could have been there, amazing!
Scott Stadum
Idealist.org
Having lived in Canada and the US, I have to say that finding opportunities in Canada was so ridiculously easy for me, but next to impossible here in the states. I saw one flyer from a program called CUSO that did IT recruiting for projects abroad. I applied, recieved a quick response, and went through a couple of phone interviews that would have led to a trip to Ghana, had I not chose to take another opportunity.
Considering how many skilled IT employees there are in the US, can anyone name one organization that could help us find placements abroad? other than the army? I am sure there are some on idealist, but doing a quick survey just now, the opportunities seem light. I applaud any outreach google is involved in, but I am a little surprised that there is not already a volunteer network in place.
If anyone has additional insight I would love to find some pointers.
I believe Geekcorps offers some opportunities in the technology sector overseas - http://www.geekcorps.org/index.php
The UN has a program for virtual volunteering - http://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/index.html
The Peace Corps has a technology program for it's volunteers -
http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?
And I found these -
http://www.volunteersforprosperity.gov/vol/info.htm
http://www.tech-soup.com/learningcenter/volunteers/archives/page10244.cfm
Thanks Scott...I appreciate the reply.
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