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| The
backbone of this web site and the collective that develops it is a set
of volunteer coordinators. |
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Over
ninety per cent of the correspondence related to the development of the
site is by or through them. |
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| Each
coordinator has a number of volunteers, that number being anywhere between
zero and thirty. |
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| A
coordinator does not necessarily speak the language of the volunteer translators
for that language. |
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Janita,
from Fiji, who lives in Australia, speaks English and coordinates Tagalog
and Kiswahili volunteers. |
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| In
contrast, Lourdes (Lules) who had been translating into Spanish for the
site for over a decade, also coordinates some Spanish volunteers, as well
as Catalan, Portuguese, Rumanian and Basque (which she does not speak). |
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Silke
translates into French and German, and coordinates the French and German
volunteers. |
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| More
importantly than keeping track of volunteers, not always an easy job, coordinators
provide encouragement, praise, recognition and acknowledgement to the volunteers. |
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This
is a non profit organization with a budget of zero, so no one is paid money
for their contributions. Volunteers, however, have need for such recognition,
and the coordinators provide that, often with no one to provide the same
for themselves. |
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| We
have four editors of the newletter, who have divided up the tasks of collecting
information and articles, drafting, formatting and polishihng it three
times a year. |
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Coordinators
are given considerable autonomy in how they recruit volunteers, and how
they provide support and encouragement to them. |
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| Roberto
says, "I think the most challenging (and rewarding, incidently) part of
the job is resolving the issues your volunteers have, which often involves
you learning how to do things yourself in order to in turn instruct them.
I think we definitely need people willing to step up to the challenge so
it's important to mention it." |
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| Three
of the senior coordinators have formed themselves into a Coordinating Council,
which acts a as a coordinator of coordinators, providing encouragement
and guidance to the coordiantors. Silke specializes in recruting, Mirinha
specialises in ongoing encouragement (and coordinating the newlsetter)
and Lules prepares web pages for uploading. |
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| If
you have a desire to try your hand at coordinating, send in a request for
a job description. |
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Language
skills are not needed to coordinate language volunteers, and you do not
have to be an artist to coordinate illustrators. |
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| What
you need is a positive attitude, a nurturing or supportive approach, tolerance
and perseverance, a love of problem solving, and willingness and ability
to be in email touch every day. |
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We
need coordinators for languages, power point production, illustrations
and any other contributions to the site. |
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