CharityVillage NewsWeek Archives: Cover Stories

News & Events

Path: Main Street : NewsWeek : Archive : Cover Stories : Article

This is an archive of CharityVillage NewsWeek. To find a word on the page, use your browser's "find" feature (CTRL-F or CMD-F).
To view other articles in the archive, use our Chronological Index.

Please note: While we ensure that all links and e-mail addresses are accurate at their publishing date, the quick-changing nature of the web means that some links to other web sites and e-mail addresses may no longer be accurate.

Canadian youth treatment agency demonstrates online volunteers can make a difference
by Randy Tyler, B.A., B.R.S.
September 7, 1999
As Ric Mazereeuw states in his "Net Heroes" article in the July/August 1999 issue of Sympatico Netlife, "Compared to most websites, Mathieu Blanchette's homepage doesn't get much traffic. In fact, the University of Winnipeg student has only one regular visitor to his website: a 13 year old boy who is in treatment-focused foster care. Blanchette, 19, is a virtual tutor and his interactive site is where he and his student meet twice a week."
Through Blanchette's client-based virtual chat tutoring, along with other online technical volunteers, Macdonald Youth Services (http://www.mys.mb.ca), a leading youth treatment and support agency based in Winnipeg, Canada, has demonstrated that the internet can be an effective medium for highly skilled virtual volunteers to help non-profit organizations.
Whether residing in the United States, Canada or Europe, virtual volunteers have contributed to both client and organizational needs at Macdonald Youth Services via the internet. Working from their home or work computer and communicating via the internet, virtual volunteers such as Sheri Orloff (Florida, United States), Lav Plourde (Quebec, Canada), David Borowski (Manitoba, Canada), Mathieu Blanchette (Manitoba, Canada), Paul Brasseur (British Columbia, Canada) and Varsily Ryndyuk (Rovno, Ukraine) have been involved in database creation, CGI programming, web site creation, program-based internet researching, online educational tutoring and desktop publishing.
Virtual Volunteering has great potential to assist non-profit organizations in ways most probably haven't thought possible. Furthermore, a virtual volunteering program is one key area where little investment is required for voluntary organizations to reap many benefits as a result of accessing a wider, diverse and largely, untapped cyber-based resource pool.
Many people, because of barriers such as time constraints, work schedules and/or remoteness, seek virtual volunteer assignments. Effective web sites in both Canada (e.g., http://www.voe-reb.org) and the United States (e.g., http://www.idealist.org) have been developed to connect these potential volunteers with non-profits offering challenging online opportunities.
f you would like further information about the development of Virtual Volunteering at Macdonald Youth Services, please feel free to contact Randy Tyler, Webmaster/Volunteer Co-ordinator, at (204) 477-7051 or via e-mail (rtyler@mys.mb.ca).