by Wayne A. Bacale

24 December 2008

My name is Wayne A. Bacale and I am from the Philippines. I have been in development work for seven years now in the Philippines and Kenya. I have been an online volunteer since November 2006 with various organizations. My primary motivation for online volunteering is to share my knowledge and skills in report writing, editing, project monitoring and evaluation, and volunteer management while at the same time learning new strategies in this area of specialization.

My interest in online volunteering started out as a casual activity. After leaving the office or during my free time on weekends I would explore the Internet, search for interesting opportunities on the UNV Online Volunteering service website (www.onlinevolunteering.org), or do the assigned online volunteer tasks within the agreed deadlines and submit outputs. Then, I started becoming more serious about online volunteering when I saw the impact of my contributions. Some organizations sent feedback on my accomplishments, some issued certificates, some referred me to other new placements and, most of all, I created an online network.

I have been involved in the editing and reviewing of the communication strategy of the United Nations Development Programme's International Poverty Centre (IPC) and have also been a Communication on Progress (COP) Report Reviewer of the UN Global Compact. Sharing my editorial and report writing skills in these UN agencies gave me an opportunity to understand and appreciate various UN initiatives in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). More importantly, UNDP IPC provided me with access to their online publications and articles, keeping me in the loop of new trends and developments regarding the programme.

Furthermore, I assisted the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme in developing the UNV Reflection Toolkit. This toolkit is a guide for UNV volunteers in assessing performance and achievements and is used as a basis for personal and professional planning. My hands-on experience in volunteer management and monitoring and evaluation significantly contributed to this placement while learning culturally and socially acceptable strategies in volunteer reflection. As a result of having close communication and receiving open feedback from my counterpart at UNV, this placement gave me better ideas for developing reflection strategies.

Currently, I am a Project Coordinator for developing the Youth Development Action Guide of Youth People We Care (YPWC). This is a guide tailored to the needs and requirements of the youth and youth groups and how they can contribute to the MDGs at the grassroots and national level. This placement gave me a rich experience in online project coordination and collaboration with online volunteers from different nationalities and allowed me to be involved in discussing new ideas and sharing views from different perspectives. In addition, the end product of the team (the Action Guide) will be released by early 2009.

Online volunteering is an interesting and worthwhile learning experience. Aside from helping organizations all over the world, it gave me an opportunity to understand global issues and how we can contribute towards development in our own simple way. Through my experience as an online volunteer, I can say that distance, time and race are not a hindrance towards skills sharing and global development.