VW says Hello World!

Volunteer Weekly (VW) says hello world! It’s been some time that I have been thinking of bringing it live but each time there was this doubt of whether it’s complete. And then suddenly I realised that it will never be complete. It is not meant to be complete. What is VW? Why is it needed?

In short it is a curated selection of stories about volunteering.

I have been a volunteer for almost 15 years now and for the last couple of years I was also working full-time with an NGO on promoting volunteerism among Indian youth. For our online campaigning, I would search for material on volunteering say quotations; research on volunteering in terms of why do people volunteer; how many people volunteer; how should people volunteer; how to make volunteering easier; why should companies think about Employee Volunteering, how to manage volunteers efficiently etc etc. I did eventually find what I was looking for like 8 out of 10 times but only after putting Google to extensive use. This blog is an effort to bring all the available resources on volunteering on the Internet together and make it easier for people like you and me to understand volunteering and promote it.

As a volunteer, I wanted to read about what other people were doing; how can I contribute? How do I approach an NGO? How do I select which NGO to volunteer with? How do I volunteer in another country? I got most answers by talking to people and this blog is my effort to collect and answer as far as possible all such questions.

We (I and other volunteers) will create as well as curate articles to bring together the best conversations on different aspects of volunteering. We will hope that as we found the inspiration to volunteer, so will many more.

You can read more about what is VW and how it works here.

It’s getting exciting. Let’s get started 🙂

-Ashima