From the Volunteer Coordinator: Vision of Kabissa from a volunteer's point of view

I am Diana, a 24 years old Romanian, who discovered Kabissa on the UNV online volunteering website. After being interviewed by the Executive Director, Tobias Eigen, I was given the great news that I have been accepted in the team, as a volunteer coordinator.

I have obtained three bachelor degrees (Law, European Affairs and Economics) and a master degree in EU’s External Relations and Diplomacy. I can speak English, French, German, a bit of Arabic and a bit of Spanish. Currently I am doing an internship at the European Parliament in Brussels.

I have developed an interest for Africa after having participated in the Geneva International Model United Nations 2011, a simulation of the UN decision-making process, where other participants and I were asked to write a convention on the elimination of all forms of violence against women. Having to do research on this subject raised my awareness regarding the problems that African countries confront themselves with.

Following this new fresh interest, I have envisioned my career plan: I would like to participate in the EU’s Junior Experts in Delegation program, in order to go to a European Union delegation in a developing country in Africa, for two years. That was the moment when I realized that beforehand, I want to invest some time and energy to get to know African people, as well as non-African people working with the African communities. In my view, one cannot go to an African country and try to improve things, without first getting to know better the African culture, their perceptions and their desires as well. I wanted to fill in the gap between the “us” and “them”.

Achievements to be proud of

Until now, my objectives have been met. As a volunteer coordinator, I have the chance to recruit the new volunteers. The fact of conducting many interviews with Africans, besides Americans, Europeans, Indians or New Zealand citizens, helped me understand the African culture better. It is incredibly encouraging to see that all these persons show a shared desire to help Africa overcome its obstacles. As a young idealist, seeing this desire to cooperate and to put energy together in order to help others is very touching.

On the internal side of my experience at Kabissa, I would start by saying that I enjoy a wonderful work relation with Tobias, part of the reasons being that he chose to develop a flat, horizontal approach inside the team, instead of a classical, vertical hierarchy that might limit the volunteers’ creativity and input. He has always treated us, the volunteers, on an equal footing, due to his much appreciated perception that we can contribute ourselves to develop Kabiss’s strategy. After having worked with him for 3 months, I can say that he is a resourceful person and that I have learned a lot from him (starting with leadership and social skills and ending with PC software, like Doodle, Etherpads or DropBox). In addition, his enthusiasm when it comes to Africa is contagious and he keeps the energy flow going, supporting Kabissa by all his means.

My relation with the other 12 volunteers has many positive aspects, because there is mutual respect and mutual support. We are all trying to give as much as we can, considering that volunteering for Kabissa comes on top of our studies or jobs or family commitments.

We have recently managed to implement the objective of having weekly team meetings. This is an occasion to monitor what has been done and to decide on the future actions that need to be taken. These meetings contribute to creating the inner glue between the volunteers, given the physical distance between us and the fact that everything is managed 100% online.

Lessons learned

Although, usually, work runs smoothly, sometimes there are also critical points to be addressed. For example, we encountered situations where volunteers had to leave the team on short notice due to increases in other commitments or cases where communication with a couple of volunteers totally disappeared for a while.

All these situations challenge me to adjust the recruitment strategy and to try to predict when these situations can happen. What is a bit tricky is that even now I don’t know how I could have foreseen either the precipitated leave or the absence of any communication, given the information that I had at that moment. These situations made me reflect on the fact that not only should I recruit resourceful persons, but also volunteers that can commit for at least 6 months constantly. This aspect is a bit difficult to assess during the selection interviews.

As a volunteer coordinator, I also have to support the current volunteers in their work. We have developed and implemented the concept of a work plan with timeline for several activities. Although it seemed a good idea, for the moment this plan is not efficiently used by the volunteers in many cases (even if they are the ones having written it). Therefore, this is another challenge: to come with an idea of how to better use this tool. Besides this, a volunteer coordinator has to also take into account that each person has a different work style. Therefore, while some volunteers just pursue their responsibilities with no need to be motivated or encouraged, in other cases I feel that some “chasing” is sometimes necessary.

For the time being, I plan to come with an idea, together with newly recruited project manager, of team building activities suitable for a team working online from all the corners of the world. I have started to feel a dissipated atmosphere inside the team, a lack of enthusiasm and maybe commitment. My perception is that this is not necessarily due to an increase in other commitments, but to the fact that, sometimes, the work at Kabissa does not necessarily have some countable or perceptible results, therefore the volunteers might feel a lack of direction. This is why I hope that the roadmap that will be created by Arthur, the project manager, will reach this target.

Conclusion

As a concluding remark, I would want to say that I advise any person to volunteer, be it for the NGO sector or not. Especially when young and at the beginning of the career, it is important to start with a position where the responsibility is not overwhelming, but where it is possible to confirm one’s knowledge and skills and to gain experience. I would also encourage the choice of a volunteering field which is the translation of a passion. By doing this, the work seems a hobby and never becomes tiring.

Before closing, I would like to thank Tobias for his constant support, professionally and personally, and to the whole team for putting efforts together in order to create a better world.

With lots of enthusiasm and looking forward to the upcoming challenges,

Diana