ACF Volunteers team wins award - Bonn, Germany – The United Nations Volunteers Online Volunteering service today announced the winners of the “Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award”. The ten winning teams, comprising online volunteers and their volunteer managers at the host organizations, made an exemplary impact on human development through their efficient online collaboration and commitment to volunteering.

A jury of experts in volunteerism, development and online collaboration selected the winners of the Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award based on the volunteers’ commitment, the organization’s approach towards online volunteer involvement, the online collaboration and its impact on the organizations’ development activities.

The jury included UNV representatives from country offices and headquarters, the UNDP Civil Society Organizations Division, as well as the external partners China NPO Network and Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation.

The purpose of this annual award is to recognize the contributions of online volunteers to human development, to demonstrate how development organizations can strengthen their activities through effective online collaboration with volunteers, and to showcase the diversity in which online volunteers can support development organizations.

The winners of the Online Volunteering Team of the Year Award are:

African Conservation Foundation Team
Two online volunteers contributed to the conservation of rainforest and the protection of critically endangered populations of great apes in South West Cameroon, providing technical expertise in geographic information systems and remote sensing.

Bureau for Reconstruction and Development Team
Working closely with the Director of the Bureau for Reconstruction and Development, an online volunteer helped to enhance the NGO’s organizational capacities and the quality of its services in the areas of human rights and capacity building in support of civil society organizations, local NGOs and the Government of Afghanistan, sharing her skills in strategic business planning, project/team management and proposal development.

Community Empowerment Collective Team
154 online volunteers helped the Community Empowerment Collective Society, composed entirely of online volunteers, to empower low-income communities by providing training material for community workers in more than 30 languages.

Conscious Generation Team
The Burundian grassroots organization Conscious Generation engaged three online volunteers in writing a proposal for a youth centre, which is now being reviewed by potential donors for funding. The project drew on the volunteers’ expertise in civil engineering and project management.

Lawyers without Borders Team
Lawyers without Borders engaged an online volunteer to promote the work of this group of volunteer lawyers worldwide who stand ready to support non-profit organizations, rule of law initiatives, legal capacity building projects and human rights work around the globe. The volunteer designed website graphics, logos and other branding images.

MAPU Team
MAPU Association of Spain joined forces with an Argentinean civil movement to raise international awareness on the consequences of mining projects in Argentina. They engaged 10 online volunteers to translate information related to the environmental, social and economic situation of Argentinean communities affected by mining.

RESPECT Team
30 online volunteers from around the world run the RESPECT University project, which provides refugees and internally displaced persons with an opportunity for personal, academic and community development by offering high school graduates free post-secondary courses by correspondence.

Shine a Light Team
Seven online volunteers translated material created by 300 grass-roots organizations serving marginalized children in Latin America. This facilitated knowledge sharing between the organizations, which form part of the ‘Shine a Light network’ and who work in a number of languages from Portuguese and Spanish to Aymara and Tzotzil.

UNDP International Poverty Centre Team
23 online volunteers from 17 countries built the UNDP International Poverty Centre’s directory of 2,800 research centres worldwide dealing with poverty and social development. It is now a key tool for fostering South-South cooperation and knowledge sharing, particularly among developing countries.

Youth for Technology Foundation Team
Six online volunteers supported the Youth for Technology Foundation in establishing the Sironko Digital Village, a community technology and learning center in Uganda, by creating a webpage, mobilizing supporters and providing strategic advice.

Congratulating the winners, UNV Executive Coordinator Ad de Raad commended the online volunteers’ admirable commitment and stressed the importance of civic engagement to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

“Achieving the MDGs will depend in large part on the engagement of citizens and civil society. Expanding opportunities for people’s participation in their own development contributes to the ‘shared sense of responsibility’ referred to in the Millennium Declaration,” he said. “The winning teams’ experiences may inspire others and thus help mobilize more volunteers for the cause of human development, and encourage more development organizations to strengthen their efforts by tapping into the rich resource that online volunteers provide.”

http://www.onlinevolunteering.org/news/news_article.php?art_id=1533

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African Conservation Foundation Team

December 04, 2007

Contribution to MDG7: Ensure environmental sustainability; Millennium Campaign: "No Excuses, Promises Must be Kept"

The African Conservation Foundation (ACF) works towards the protection and conservation of Africa's endangered wildlife and their habitats. By sharing their technical expertise in geographic information systems and remote sensing, the online volunteers Lauriane Cayet and Magali Moreau contributed to the conservation of rainforest and the protection of critically endangered populations of great apes in South West Cameroon.

Driven by their commitment to environmental issues and their strong ties to the African continent, Magali and Lauriane collected, processed and analyzed satellite images and radar data related to the project area. Meticulous task planning and close coordination were key elements for the effective collaboration across time zones between Lauriane, Magali and the director of ACF, Arend de Haas.

The baseline geographic data they developed helped ACF identify the threats to and opportunities for the conservation of the great apes in South West Cameroon. It laid the basis for the development of effective conservation strategies and of a community model for the co-management of the forest area, through a participatory process with local stakeholders. The volunteers also produced maps of forest cover and forest-cover change that helped visualize where rainforest was disappearing in the study area. Besides being an effective tool for awareness-raising and long-term monitoring, the forest-cover information increased local capacities and enabled informed decision-making.

Lauriane: “Our online collaboration is going beyond the online assignments. I have become the contact person for ACF in an environmental think tank I work for. I think the online volunteering service is an incredible opportunity to create organizational partnerships and link people together to benefit human development.”