How can supporting organisations use this tool?
There are different ways it can be useful for you, supporting the preparation work you are doing with volunteers:
- You can give the link to the volunteer and encourage him/her to work with it alone; afterwards you can discuss with him/her the learnings
- You can create an individualized on-line preparation programme for each volunteer, selecting the most relevant topics and activities from the on-line tool; afterwards you can discuss the learnings with the volunteer
- You can ask the volunteer to use the tool and to share the files resulting from the on-line activities with you; afterwards you can use these files to discover what are the points you should focus on during face to face preparation
- You can use some parts of the tool to treat some topics, and still do face to face work to treat other topics
- You can accompany the volunteer working with the on-line tool, closely following the process and helping him/her to overcome difficulties/making up for lacking digital competences
- You can use the on-line tool only as background resource and inspiration
Modules are not interdependent, completion of one module is not a prerequisite of starting another one, which makes it possible for you to suggest volunteers to do just particular modules or a particular activity within a module, depending on individual preparation needs.
The supplementary nature of the iPrepare tool
Though we are have aimed at creating a rather comprehensive tool that can be used by volunteers autonomously, - for a thorough preparation the participation of the supporting organisation will still be necessary. Off-line preparation should focus especially on the following needs of volunteers which cannot be answered by our tool:
- binding between the participating organisations and the volunteer, making volunteers feel secure, building trust and providing emotional support (eventually also creating a supporting group feeling between several volunteers)
- discussing project specific details (info on the hosting country and the project activities), providing practical, task oriented preparation (e.g. teaching games or making volunteers visit a nursery if they are going to work with children, etc.)
- support with using the tool: motivating volunteers to use it, discussion of learnings and clarification of any doubts resulting from on-line activities, providing additional information based on the volunteers’ individual needs.
Languages
iPrepare is currently available in English, Italian, Czech and Hungarian languages. Further translations are welcome, so if you would like to translate it in your own language, please contact our team at contact@iprepare.eu.
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