Knowledge in Action (KIA): Virtual Volunteer Training Series

“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others.” – Lewis Carroll

The journey of spreading volunteerism began by Caritas India is not dwindled by the pandemic. With every sector adapting to the virtual medium and accepting it as the new normal, Caritas India too on 16^th September 2020, initiated its virtual training series on volunteering – ‘KIA : Knowledge in Action’ with selected volunteers from Ajmer, Agra, Bijnor and Gorakhpur. The training series is designed in a web series mode with each series consisting of three sessions. It is also a pre-training for the participants to prepare them for onsite training.

The first session focussed on orienting the participants on ‘Volunteering: a way of living’ and Caritas India volunteering. Mr Chinmay Rao and Mr Prince David, Caritas Samaritans facilitated the training by sharing about the benefits of volunteering for the society and for an individual. They also added their personal experiences of being a Caritas Samaritan and working out of their own comfort zones. Mr Prince during his sharing highlighted the challenges faced by volunteers during their volunteering period and narrated how to overcome those challenges through self-motivation and determination. Mr. Chinmay’s session focussed on the advantages of organised volunteering. Through his experience in organised volunteering he shared that it supports in expanding volunteer’s network, he/she shall have access to resources, the code of conduct for volunteers, policy manual etc. Participants comprised of both young and experienced volunteers. As the participants belonged to different cultural backgrounds and varied age groups, their views and comments added value to the training. The session helped volunteers to learn from each other’s experiences.

The following two sessions would focus on training the volunteers on Communication and Resource Mobilization. The session on communication shall focus on imparting effective communication techniques through different communication platform as well as personal interaction. It shall also ensure explaining forms of communication like written, telephonic, one-to-one, presenting to groups, posters, social media. It will also train participants on how to present experience so that the receiver understands the value that his resource provides to society as well as himself/organisation as a volunteer and/or donor. Resource Mobilization session will orient and train the participants on the do’s and don’ts of raising funds and donor identification. At the end of the third session, the volunteers will prepare the action plan to engage the learnt skills of communication and resource mobilization into practice.