C13: Newcomer Volunteerism
Level: Introductory/Intermediate
This workshop will equip settlement workers with information and tools to successfully engage volunteers in their own agencies and to assist newcomers in finding successful and rewarding volunteer experiences that can help them gain valuable “Canadian” work experience and integrate with their new communities.
Through small group exercises interspersed with presentation and sharing of participant experiences, we will consider:
How ‘volunteerism’ is expressed across cultures
Research and tools specifically related to newcomer volunteerism
Tips and resources related to each part of the volunteer cycle (planning, recruitment, selection and screening, orientation and training, recognition)
How mandated community service (e.g. Ontario’s “40 hours” program , “workfare”, unpaid internships or field placements) relates to volunteerism
Brenda Doner has thirty years experience managing and training in the voluntary sector, including time with arts groups, in international development, and in community development and citizen engagement across Canada. For the past nine years she has consulted for IMPACS, Volunteer Canada, Tamarack - An Institute for Community Engagement, and Food Secure Canada, among others. Her work has taken her to Africa, to south-east Asia and to China as well as across Canada. Until it closed in 2007, she managed the Ontario Network of the Canada Volunteerism Initiative, a federally funded initiative to promote and strengthen volunteerism and citizen engagement.
