CONCERN AMERICA ADOPT-A-VOLUNTEER PROGRAM

Many development organizations like Concern America offer child sponsorship programs as a way for their supporters to get more involved. Concern America offers an alternative so that entire villages can be helped. By adopting a Concern America volunteer, a professional person who gives two or more years of her/his life to train local villagers, a multiplier effect occurs: a process that touches more and more people as time goes on. Like a pebble dropped into a pond, the ripples continue moving outward.

Concern America volunteers are nonsalaried professionals in fields such as primary health care, education, agriculture, engineering and community organizing who live and work with communities struggling to help themselves. The Concern America volunteers carry out projects designed to become self-sustaining. They don't just immunize children, but they also teach others to do so - and help them develop skills to organize an immunization campaign and to educate parents on the importance of taking part in it. When the volunteer leaves, this group of trained and dedicated health workers remains in the community, ready and able to continue helping it move forward on the road to improved health.

When you adopt a Concern America volunteer, you become a very concrete part of her/his work. You will receive a volunteer profile (see below), sample quarterly report, and description of the project. Four times a year you will receive field reports from your volunteer, relating the progress your support makes possible.

TO SIGN UP FOR THE ADOPT-A-VOLUNTEER PROGRAM OR FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, PLEASE CALL 1-800-CONCERN (266-2376).

Click HERE to download a power point presentation on Concern America's Adopt a Volunteer program (5.2 mb).


SAMPLE VOLUNTEER PROFILES

Name: Lisa Jones
Profession: Education Specialist
Place of Birth: United States
Education: B.A. Anthropology, M.S. in Education
Country of Service: Guatemala

Project Description
Lisa serves as a Concern America volunteer in the "Handicraft Project, Guatemala." This project is an economic development project which works with approximately 12 organized groups of Guatemalan weavers (many of whom are widows). The groups range in size from 15-250 weavers, the average size being approximately 60-80. This is a "fair trade" project whose primary purpose is to promote the economic self-sufficiency of the weavers by providing markets which allow them to realize a just payment for a variety of woven products using traditional indigenous designs. A second purpose is to preserve both the tradition of weaving and the cultural values expressed through this art-form. One of the most important aspects of the project is that of providing training and empowerment programs for the women weavers. In addition, the project plays an important role in educating its customers about the difficult life-situations of many of the people in Guatemala.

It is the intent of all projects of Concern America to help materially poor communities lift themselves out of poverty permanently.

Name: John Smith
Profession: Engineer
Place of Birth: United States
Education: B.S. Engineering MS in Materials Engineering
Country of Service: Guatemala

Project Description
John serves as a Concern America volunteer in the "Integrated Community Health Project, Peten, Guatemala." The main objective of this project is to improve the state of health of impoverished, rural, permanent communities and refugee-returnee communities through the training of health promoters, midwives, and other health-related workers in the region of the Peten, in northeastern Guatemala. The appropriate technology component complements the work of the health components of this project and includes the following activities: training villagers in the construction and maintenance of appropriate latrine systems for their communities, the promotion of fuel-efficient cooking units (including solar ovens), assistance with providing simple water systems, working with villagers on ways to purify their drinking water and the exploration and application of other appropriate energy technologies.

It is the intent of all projects of Concern America to help materially poor communities lift themselves out of poverty permanently.