Digital Volunteering

One of the subjects touched during the seminar was related to the digital volunteering programme Sunrise launched in March 2020. The topic related to this online volunteering programme was very well received by the participants of the seminar.

Now lets discover why the innovative programe launched bu Sunrise is a good practice of digital youth work. In the prrograme young people receive mentoring and personalised training for different volunteering roles they choose and provide comprehensive training on how to be effective and enjoy their work by working more on what volunteers like and automating more of what they don’t like.The main objective of the practice was to continue to meet one of our goals – education for youngsters – even in a time where real trainings and events were not possible.The 3 different roles we offer so far in are:

1. Social Medias Supervisor

Basic Expectations: Volunteer role is to:

– Prepare and schedule daily posts on the NGOs Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts using Buffer.

– Get involved in social debates on Twitter to promote the NGOs values.

– Create and Schedule written posts & infographics & quote pictures on SPF Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts using Buffer about recently published articles.

Advanced Expectations:

– Create small videos using contents from recently published articles.

2. Digital Space Manager

Basic Expectations: Volunteer role is to:

– Publish articles and pages on the website.

– Create a visual appealing layout.

– Prepare and send the newsletters based on published articles.

Advanced Expectation: We will also offer you to work with the SEO approach of the website (how to rank the website in front of other websites when searching for some keywords).

3. Digital Content Creator

Volunteer role is to:

– Write blog articles (usually around 3000 characters per article)

– Write 280 characters excerpts from these articles dedicated to Social Medias

We have launched our online volunteering programme via an intense campaign on social medias. We had only 2 criteria for selection: to be at least 18 y-o and to have a fluent English level.

Once youngsters pass the selection interview, the next steps are taken:

1. Sign the volunteering contract
2. Training – it consists of a series of live training, together with videos and procedure manuals we have created especially for them
3. The actual volunteering work. Each Friday the volunteers have to send by email a report of their work for that week. They receive constant mentoring and help for their tasks.
4. Regular meetings – Around each New Moon of each month we organise an online meeting with the volunteers and NGOs members to socialise, share ideas and make plans.
5. At the end of the volunteering period we offer a recommendation letter and a certificate.

The practice was developed together by our team formed by youth workers. We have three main team members:

1. youth worker/ trainer team member
2. the team member specialised with ICT and media aspects
3. Mentor for the volunteers and main contact point available to guide volunteers

Additional team of two youngsters was involved in the selection process – managing emails (checking that the ones who apply actually meet the conditions) and scheduling interviews for selection. We have created an application form on our website and we hold regularly Google Meet or Skype interviews with young people who apply.