IC Volunteers (ICV) is a volunteer placement organization, but its volunteer opportunities are a horse of a different color. You really need to read through the opportunities to get a sense of what’s on offer, but, to start with, note that IC stands for International Conference, and as such many of the opportunities involve helping plan, host, interpret or report on events for local, national and international conferences – primarily in Geneva, Switzerland, but regularly in other locations as well. Past conferences which ICV recruited volunteers for have included meetings of the UN Commission of Human Rights and conferences on topics such as sustainable development.

You may not get the immediate kick that you do from getting involved in a hands-on, “in the field” project, but this kind of volunteering may give you a chance to share or learn about new ideas, to make professionally-oriented contacts with others working or volunteering in a field you are interested in, and simply to gain experience that is more easily translateable as “real work experience” on a resume.

In bringing about social change, much comes before actually carrying out an aid project; volunteering in this capacity may well give you an insight into how it all works and may make you aware of other, less widely advertised, ways to be involved. I don’t have any experience with ICV, but something as distant from “the field” as proofreading professional research reports has opened my eyes to how much time, effort and planning goes into the steps leading up to “action” and I imagine volunteering with ICV would be much the same (or even more insight-providing).

Some sample opportunities (note that some have already passed) include:

Helping with a conference on immigration in Spain.

Writing articles to be published online about happenings at the 2005 Commission on Human Rights conference.

Coordinating the ICV office in Senegal.

But don’t rely only on me for information! Check out the ICV site yourself.