What is virtual volunteering?
At Discovery SVS we have a lot of types of volunteering that you can practice remotely including virtual volunteering. You can choose an activity that resonates with your hobbies or that you are passionate about. If you normally don’t have time to go and volunteer locally or are looking for something worthwhile to do whilst also building transferable skills such as data analysis, helping others, or taking part in research then virtual volunteering is definitely one for you!
What does it mean to be a virtual volunteer? Virtual volunteering allows you to offer your time and services away from the physical site of an organization, project, or campaign. As a virtual volunteer, you can work over the internet via computer, tablet, or phone to help support a cause that is important to you whilst you give as much or as little time as you want!
What opportunities can I get involved in?
Whether you’re passionate about environmental conservation, reproductive rights, or alleviating worldwide hunger, there’s probably a virtual volunteer opportunity out there for you. Below is a list of opportunities that Discovery SVS have been promoting.
https://www.record-lrc.co.uk/c2.aspx?Mod=Article&ArticleID=MyPatch_Home – Enjoy nature, stay at home and explore your garden! This opportunity helps gain insight into species found in gardens by recording the wildlife seen in ‘your patch’.
https://ilga.org/volunteer – Join the global fight to end human rights violations against lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people! Get involved by translating reports and documents from English into other languages, proofreading, graphic design, video making and creating social media content.
https://librivox.org/pages/volunteer-for-librivox/ – Volunteers to read and record public domain texts to help create free public domain audiobooks!
https://educationsaveslives.org/get-involved/ – Education Saves Lives create simple, interactive lessons about health and other topics to help people live more safely. Volunteers are needed to translate these videos from English into other languages to help make them accessible to as many people as possible.
Additional Virtual Volunteering opportunities
https://www.zooniverse.org/ –Many different online activities including spotting penguin eggs and chicks from still photographs to help scientists understand more about the animals and their environments
https://freerice.com/game – A words game where every question you answer correctly donates money to World Food Programme – specifically rice.
https://instantwild.zsl.org/intro – Help scientist monitor species habits and numbers by identifying animals, birds, and insects from small video clips.
https://www.bemyeyes.com/ – Be a blind or low vision person’s eyes via an app. When the app buzzes, a blind or low vision person needs help with a task. Via a live video call, you can help and guide them through it.
https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en –Large UN portal with many different volunteering opportunities. It has some regular volunteering opportunities too.
https://foldingathome.org/start-folding/ – Help cure diseases with your gaming PC. Download the software and your computer will be working to help us find cures for diseases like cancer in the background.
https://www.missingmaps.org/ – Help fill in the gaps on maps of remote places to support disaster relief teams around the world.
https://www.antislaverymanuscripts.org/classify – Transcribe handwritten messages between anti-slavery activists in the 19th Century.
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/dwhiter/aurora-zoo/classify Answer questions about the shape and movement of the Northern Lights to help scientists discover more about them.
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/mzfasdg2/reading-natures-library Decipher handwritten notes on historic botany microscope slides to help scientists discover more about our world.
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/cetalingua/manatee-chat Identify Manatee’s calls to help scientists discover more about them (an animal that Christopher Columbous once mistook for a mermaid – and started those rumours off)
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/ajpiper/criminal-characters Transcribe the criminal careers of 19th century Australian prisoners.
https://www.axsmap.com/ Help out your local community by entering your postcode and rate businesses in your local area on how accessible they are for people with disabilities.
https://www.speak.social/en/be-a-buddy/ Speak another language? Sign up to help others learn a language. Full training and support provided to set up a language group.
https://tarjimly.org/howitworks#translator Speak another language? The Tarjimly app connects refugees, asylees, immigrants, and the people who support them with bilingual volunteer translators. You’ll receive a notification whenever someone who needs your skills makes a translation request. These can include live calls, translating documents and videos. You have flexibility to accept the requests that suit your availability.
You can also follow Discovery SVS online to find out more opportunities.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/discoverysvs
Instagram: www.instagram.com/discoverysvs
Twitter: @discoverysvs
Can I use virtual volunteering to as Discovery volunteering hours?
The other great thing about virtual volunteering is that you can use the time you use to do it as your Discovery volunteering hours. This means that you will be able to have a clear record of what you have contributed, access benefits such as getting a reference off Discovery if you log 50 hours or more with us or to apply for your bronze, silver or gold HEAR (Higher Education Achievement Record) Award which will look great on your CV.
To do this all you have to do is sign up as a volunteer on our volunteering platform: volunteering.discoverysvs.org. Then join the opportunity ‘Virtual Volunteering’ under the ‘search’ tab. You can now log your hours under opportunities! Once signed up you will also get a weekly email letting you know about other volunteering opportunities.
If you have any questions about this or want to get involved in Discovery’s other volunteering projects
please email discovery@swansea.ac.uk,
explore our website (www.discoverysvs.org)
or follow us on social media.