Volunteering opportunities

Below are current volunteering opportunities for international development projects in Cambridge and overseas. If you would like to be notified of new volunteering opportunities, please subscribe to the mailing list here. If you would like to advertise a volunteering opportunity, either in Cambridge or overseas, please email tom.hird@humanitariancentre.org.

Local Opportunities

Humanitarian Centre Volunteers, Cambridge

Global health media volunteers:

For those who are passionate about communicating Global Health issues in an intelligent and engaging way.  We are looking for volunteer bloggers and social media enthusiasts, as well as podcast- and video- makers, to effectively and creatively contribute editorials, event reviews, interviews, and relevant research to the Humanitarian Centre’s Cambridge Global Health website.  We believe this is a particularly good opportunity for those seeking a career in journalism, media & communications, campaigning and advocacy, or international development.

If you are interested in this position or have any questions, please contact Anne Radl at anne.radl@humanitariancentre.org.

Voluntary Services Overseas, Cambridge area

Could you give a day or two of your work time per year to make the world a fairer place for all? If so, read on……

VSO is one of the world’s leading independent international development organisations that works through volunteers to fight poverty in developing countries. Cambridge (town and gown) has a focal group of VSO supporters. We seek a volunteer for the role of Hon. Sec, to serve this group.

VSO Cambridge meet formally only three times a year for a couple of hours; this is for a social business meeting. We have a Chairman and Honorary Treasurer, a Corresponding Secretary and Events organisers.  We now seek a new Honorary Secretary who could service these three meetings a year (our former Secretary has just gone to Uganda on contract for three years). All reasonable office expenses may be reclaimed. The local supporters in the group, for their part, keep contact with Cambridge region volunteers who are overseas and each year organise one or two fund-raising or consciousness-raising events, some of which are coordinated by the VSO Charity nationally.

The person we seek as Hon. Sec. needs to be able to offer only basic word-processing and IT skills, for the management of Agendas, Minutes and a simple membership database (n = 100). They would also be the hub-link person for this region, liaising with London VSO Head office.  There is no management of subscriptions to manage and only addition or removal of names from lists.  Above all, the group seeks an Honorary Secretary who is personally committed to VSO’s philosophy and  high-impact approach. Internationally, this involves bringing people together to share skills, build capabilities, promote understanding and action, and change lives to make the world a fairer place for all. This is a short-term commitment but would give the post-holder good professional links to similar Charity work and the Cambridge Humanitarian Centre, of which we are members.

See the national VSO web pages and also http://www.vso.org.uk/act/supporter-groups/cambridge.asp  or mailto:spt22@cam.ac.uk Stephen Tomkins (Chair) for more information.

Cambridge Hub Training

Cambridge Hub Training are looking for a volunteer to work on building an Online Training Resource Bank within their new website. This is a short term opportunity, for Lent term 2012 only.

Where: Home-based, and at the Cambridge Hub Office

Skills required: no programming skills needed, but must be web-savvy (familiarly with collaborative platforms a plus)

Why do it: You get to learn to navigate an exciting website format Xwiki (a design-oriented wiki platform). This is a self-contained project, you can work at your own pace, at the comfort of your own room but also interact with the dynamic Cambridge Hub Team. All for a good cause!

To apply: e-mail Victoria at training@cambridgehub.org

Cambridge to Africa (C2A) Volunteers, Cambridge

Cambridge to Africa is a UK registered charity based at the Humanitarian Centre, Cambridge. We are a small, dynamic organisation working in the UK, Uganda and Ethiopia. We are looking for a volunteer to manage and build on our current social media profile. This is a part-time role for approximately 4-6 hours a week.

If you are interested please email Dr Sacha DeVelle at sacha@cambridgetoafrica.org.  For more information about Cambridge to Africa go to www.cambridgetoafrica.org

Cambridge University United Nations Association

 

Addenbrooke’s Abroad Volunteer, Cambridge

Addenbrooke’s Abroad inspires, enables and supports staff and students of Cambridge University Hospitals and the surrounding health community to share their expertise abroad to the benefit of disadvantaged communities and strives to ensure there is reciprocal learning and development.

We seek a skilled volunteer to design some posters to display in the Addenbrooke’s Abroad Art Gallery: a busy thoroughfare located in the outpatients department of Cambridge University Hospitals. Posters are to highlight some of the amazing experiences that health professionals have whilst volunteering overseas. For those that are interested, this could turn into a longer term volunteering experience helping with branding, publicity and promotional material.

Please contact Sophia Mahroo on sophia.mahroo@addenbrookes.nhs.uk or 01223 596438 for more details

 

Aiducation volunteers, Cambridge

Where would you be today without Education?

Despite extraordinary talent, motivation and compelling visions for their lives, the World Bank estimates that 40,000,000 students, mainly in developing countries, don‘t have access to secondary education for purely financial reasons every year!

Aiducation International is a social startup that allows its donors to really make a difference by awarding merit-based high-school scholarships to bright and needy students in developing countries (currently in Kenya and expanding to Asia). Have a look at our work in more detail at www.aiducation.org

How can you help?

The Cambridge chapter of Aiducation International is run by a group of Judge Business School MBA students. We are looking for passionate individuals to join our team, to assist with scholarship raising and administrative activities.

Expected time commitment is 2-4 hours per week. No prior volunteering or fund raising experience required. All you need is energy, enthusiasm and a strong desire to make an impact through education.

If you have any questions or would like to join us, please email cambridge@aiducation.org

 

Aptivate volunteers, Cambridge

Aptivate is an NGO that specialises in IT for International Development. We work with other non-profits, charities, and NGOs as technical consultants, facilitators and trainers, web / software developers, and to provide hosting services, on a wide range of projects.We also carry out projects in our own areas of interest, mainly focused on increasing global access to web resources, by promoting low-bandwidth web design, making tools to help network managers and people browsing the web in less well connected environments, and providing training workshops and resources, both for network managers and for people new to using computers and the internet.

We’re currently 10 people working full and part time, both in and out of Cambridge, assisted by a number of part-time volunteers. We’ve got a heap of requested work on at the moment and we could really use some skilled help to take on some of the workload! We’re currently looking to hire experienced web developers. We also take on a number of volunteers every year.

We mainly work on Linux environments, and we’re developing in Django/Python and PHP at the moment, having moved on from a lot of Java projects previously. We use test-driven-development and agile methodologies adapted for small projects. Although everyone has areas of expertise and responsibilities within the organisation, we all wear many hats; we manage the organisation collectively, and we expect and encourage anyone working with us to take part fully in that.

If you’re interested in finding out more about us you’d be welcome to pop in for lunch and an informal chat anytime; we eat together most days at our office in  the Humanitarian Centre. Contact us on info@aptivate.org or call 01223 760 887 and ask for Tom Lord.

 

Transforming Business volunteers, Cambridge

Transforming Business is a project in the University of Cambridge focused on enterprise solutions to poverty. We are particularly interested in the role of ethics and entrepreneurship in human development. We are in need of voluntary research, admin, IT, events and fundraising support. The work is stimulating and creative, with flexible hours, and it can be done from wherever.

If you are interested in helping this exciting and entrepreneurial project to gain reach and increase impact, please contact Peter Heslam, the Director of Transforming Business.

To find out more about Transforming Business, visit www.transformingbusiness.net

 

Overseas opportunities

Volunteering in India with Camvol, Summer vacation 2012

Camvol was established in November 2006. It is a registered charity which organizes volunteer placements in India for Cambridge University students. The students volunteer during their summer vacation for a period of 8 weeks. Some graduate students may go for longer periods. Students would volunteer with environment and development based NGOs in the North of India.

Deadlines for applications is Monday 20 February 2012

Please refer to website for details of Camvol volunteering and placements-www.camvol.org