Life was going great guns for Nandita Jacob. Prestigious MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, a plush job in the corporate sector abroad, loads of money, immense job satisfaction, plenty of job offers... But, she felt something was amiss. The thought that the world had given her enough and more but she hadn’t given anything back to the world kept tormenting her, till such day when she came across iVolunteer.

iVolunteer is an initiative of MITRA Technology Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation committed towards promoting and facilitating volunteering in India. Working as a platform that connects potential volunteers with volunteering opportunities in India and abroad, iVolunteer aims to create a volunteering revolution in the country to fight poverty and disadvantage.

Active in Bangalore for quite some time now, iVolunteer has over 2,000 volunteers on its register, willing to utilise their spare time in community service. The list of volunteers includes everyone from students to homemakers to professionals.

According to Prarthana Unkalkar, Volunteer Relationship Executive at iVolunteer, Bangalore, “There are many people who are willing to do social service but are not sure how to go about it. That is when we come into the picture.”

Once the prospective volunteer fills up a form, he is interviewed personally to learn about his interests and the time he can spare. Based on the information thus elicited from him, iVolunteer connects him to the NGO that works in the field that best suits his skills and interests.

“Of the many NGO’s in Bangalore, right now we are working with about 50 of them. But, while directing volunteers to NGO’s, the organisations’ requirements are also considered,” adds Prarthana.

So, the volunteer willing to work can do anything from tutoring students from government schools to recording cassettes for the benefit of the visually challenged. While most professionals work over the weekends, homemakers work during the week, teaching, reading and, if not anything, spending time in old age homes as many inmates love to talk but find no patient listeners.

Another simple activity that most people can engage themselves in is the newspaper drive, wherein volunteers can ask people to donate old newspapers which can be used by the blind to write their notes in Braille.

“Volunteering is in fact very therapeutic. The volunteer not only gets to do community service, but also learn a lot from the experience of it all,” says Prarthana.

iVolunteer also organises volunteer management workshops on a regular basis for the benefit of NGO’s, wherein organisations are taught ways and means of managing volunteers and utilising their skills in a better way.

iVolunteer also offers tailormade programmes to suit volunteers, like one-time event based programmes, short term programmes that run up to 3 months and long term programmes for those willing to work for over 3 months.
Four other programmes offered by iVolunteer are -

iVolunteer India Fellow, where students in the age group of 18-26 years are selected from colleges and sent to work with NGOs working in rural areas.

iVolunteer Overseas, where volunteers from India are offered an opportunity to work in other developing countries.

Employee Volunteering, where employees of corporate and government organisations work with local communities. Through this programme, corporates discharge their corporate social responsibility, says Prarthana.

Last but not the least, National and International Volunteering, where foreign nationals wanting to contribute to the development work in India are allowed to do so. Citing an example, Prarthana says a Canadian national recently worked with AIDS patients in Summanahalli.

While each of these programmes have their own reach and associations, iVolunteer Overseas is carried out in partnership with VSO, an international development organisation with headquarters in the UK.

Nandita Jacob from Bangalore, who is now in Sri Lanka, elaborates on the advantages of the programme thus - “I had always wanted to make my minuscule contribution to development, use my experiences in some fashion to make a tiny difference. So when I heard of the VSO programme, I jumped. I took a deep breath,  took a sabbatical from corporate life, and joined up as a VSO Volunteer.  Thus far, this experience has exceeded my wildest expectations.”
VSO linked Nandita with an organisation called AKASA, a network of self-help groups of women with disabilities or their families, in Anuradhapura in North Central Sri Lanka. Nandita is today busy building AKASA’s management capacity and systems.
“I joined them as a Management Advisor in March 2006 for a two year period and my experience so far has been very rewarding. I also feel good that I am making my contribution, however small it is, to the inexorable tides of development,” adds Nandita.
Where there’s a will, there sure is a way, shall we say?
If you have a heart to make a difference somewhere, somehow, call: 080 41466568 or log on to www.ivolunteer.org.in