Web Opens World to Digital Volunteers

If volunteering is on your list of New Year's resolutions but your time is short, cyberservice may be the answer. Just ask Laurie Moy, who now runs an international nonprofit organization. Her service started with an interest in international issues and an Internet connection.

Moy, now the executive director of Pearls of Africa, an organization that serves people with disabilities in Uganda, became an online volunteer three years ago. The Internet makes volunteering easier than ever: You don't have to move across the globe to make a difference, Moy says.

She discovered the opportunity through NetAid.org, which connects people with organizations focused on fighting poverty. The site lists volunteer jobs that can be done from your own PC and often on your own time.

"People are engaging in communities internationally" through the Internet, says Bea Bezmalinovic, head of NetAid.org's online volunteering program. "Ten years ago this would not have been possible."

Bezmalinovic says that while the time people have to volunteer is declining, virtual volunteering offers a way for people to adapt volunteering to their schedules. As access to the Internet expands, more people are signing up.

Pearls of Africa is run entirely by online volunteers who research and develop programs, solicit donations, and run a children's resource library in Uganda geared toward disabilities. Moy traveled to Uganda in November 2001 with the United Nations to open the library.

"I never dreamed it would have taken me this far," Moy says. "I log on and I have e-mail from all corners of the globe and we are working on one path together."

World Computer Exchange, based in Massachusetts, relies on virtual volunteers in its mission to bring computers to schools in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Since it was founded in October 1999, the organization has helped 676 schools and almost 256,000 students go online, says Tim Anderson, president and founder.

"The schools we're connecting to the Internet would not be able to bridge the digital divide for ten years," Anderson says.

His 100 volunteers, whom he recruits through NetAid, help gather and test computers to ship them to the schools. Volunteers in the various countries also offer technical support.

Virtual volunteering is growing within the United States. VolunteerMatch, which links volunteers with more than 23,000 organizations offering about 40,000 volunteer opportunities, is helping that cause, says Jason Willett, director of communications. Since 1998, nearly one million people signed up for an opportunity through VolunteerMatch.

One of these groups is NetMentors, which offers online career development for teenagers. It serves as a virtual career counselor with expertise on 70 different careers. With about 800 mentors, the group has counseled 1000 students entirely through its Web site.

"We encourage people to do traditional mentoring, but if that is not an option, we offer another way," says James Green, executive director. "This way has time and geographic advantages." Using technology, NetMentors is a vehicle for students to get in contact with individuals they wouldn't normally have access to.

Amye Love, an elementary schoolteacher and a NetMentor volunteer for the past three years, can participate from anywhere at anytime. In less than one hour each week, she helps several students make career choices by answering questions on what it takes to be an educator.

"Kids today rely so much on their computers," Love says. "It's an interesting technique that will take off."