Volunteer’s Week 2010
Every year Volunteer’s Week, celebrated from the 1st to the 7th of June, gives us the opportunity to highlight and express our gratitude towards the great and invaluable contribution made by our volunteers.
Since the start of 2010, we have worked with a number of volunteers from a range of professions including legal, finance, management, research, marketing, and IT backgrounds. Their reasons for undertaking a volunteer assignment vary depending on their professional experience and personal goals. For highly experienced professionals, they state it is an opportunity to inject new life into their professional career while for newly qualified graduates it is an excellent opportunity to begin their professional career. Whatever the reason maybe, it is a chance to gain more professional and personal development experience. By making their skills and experience available to our network members overseas, volunteers are able to deliver key support and make a practical difference to our local partner organisations and their communities in emerging economies.
Our volunteers
Here are the stories of two of our top volunteers who have recently returned from their overseas assignments.
Peter, a highly qualified IT professional, volunteered for three months in Sri Lanka as an IT Consultant for the country’s largest microfinance institution. It was an opportunity to work within his “career ‘comfort zone’, coupled with the satisfaction of assisting in the recovery of a struggling, war-damaged economy”. His contribution resulted in him making recommendations for improvements to the company’s IT infrastructure. He also identified opportunities for creating numerous new roles within the organisation, for which he then wrote job descriptions. When he returned from Sri Lanka, he wanted “more of the same, perhaps a similar engagement in a different cultural setting”. Straight after his return, he applied for the Programme Manager position on Challenges CBE programme in Malawi, which delivers business consulting, training and SME development services through projects funded by the Scottish Government.
Kieran volunteered as a Management Consultant and Business development Advisor. Whilst on assignment he conducted a strategic review, and facilitated strategic & business planning processes within an award-winning social enterprise in Tanzania. His work prepared the organisation for external investment and helped support the scaling up of their activities. The work carried out by Kieran resulted in securing substantial funding for the organisation to start up a stand-alone commercial company that would support the organisations work.
Opportunities
At present, Challenges Worldwide has various programmes running including Capacity Building for Enterprise (CBE) in Malawi, Capacity Building for Justice (CBJ) in Malawi, the Newly Qualified Lawyers Programme (NQLP) and the Strathclyde University Programme.
Challenges Worldwide has a number of exciting and dynamic roles in HR, IT, Project management, Business development, Strategic planning, Administration, Communications, Social research, Finance, Marketing and law. For our latest volunteer opportunities, check out our Opportunities Section . If you would like to undertake a volunteer assignment, please send your CV & Covering Letter to apply@challengesworldwide.
We would like to thank again the 600 professionals who have volunteered over the past 10 years with Challenges Worldwide.
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