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Volunteering

More than one million New Zealanders are actively involved in volunteer work according to Statistics NZ who estimated that in the year ended March 2004, there were 1,011,600 who volunteered for one or more of 97,000 non-profit organisations around the country.

In Canterbury, Volunteering Canterbury supports and promotes the work of volunteers and voluntary organisations. They make it easy to become a volunteer – simply phone (03) 3662442 to arrange an informal personal interview. Learn more about becoming a volunteer on their web site. You can also search online for volunteering opportunities and register online.

Lending a helping hand is something that can be done by people of all ages. The libraries’ the Pulse website has information for young people about voluntary work.

Volunteers
Search the libraries CINCH (Community Information Christchurch) database for information about volunteering and voluntary organisations.

Volunteering
Localeye (Christchurch and Canterbury online gateway) links to the websites of organisations which use volunteers.

Volunteering
Volunteering and Service Groups on Internet Gateway.

Volunteering
Search the Christchurch City Libraries catalogue for material on volunteering.

Volunteering is an international movement. A very well known example is WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) which operates a network around New Zealand. Wwoof.org has a directory of WWOOF networks in different countries.

Another longstanding international volunteer organisation is Volunteer Service Abroad which sends Kiwis to aid projects in different parts of the world.

A recent trend is for travellers to volunteer in countries they are visiting. The VolunTourism website is a good introduction to this.