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Newsletter
May 2009
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THIS MONTH'S TOPICS
1. TIP: How to communicate effectively by email
2. EXPERIENCE: Empowering local communities to fight against HIV/AIDS
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1. TIP: How to communicate effectively by email
Emailing is the most common form of communication used by online volunteers and organizations. The following ground rules for email correspondence will support the efficiency of your online collaboration:
MINIMIZING INTERCULTURAL MISUNDERSTANDING: While intercultural communication can be difficult in a face-to-face environment, written communication across intercultural lines is even more of a challenge. To minimise the chances of mis-communication, it is important to be aware of cultural differences and language constraints and to be mindful of both when writing emails and when reading others’ emails.
OVERCOMING ANONYMITY: Always remember that the recipient of your email is a human being. Personalizing your messages will help you overcome the anonymity of the Internet. It starts with the way you address your correspondent and includes sharing information about yourself.
STRIVING FOR CLARITY: Send messages that are concise and to the point. If you are communicating in a language which is not your and/or your correspondent’s mother tongue, the best is to use plain language and to keep sentences simple.
RESPECTING PRIVACY: Get your correspondents’ consent before putting them into contact or including the email addresses of several people in the To or cc. fields of an email.
SENDING ATTACHMENTS: Be careful sending email attachments. Large attachments may be rejected by the recipients’ email server or tie up their machine if they have a slow Internet connection. Instead, compress the file, split it into smaller pieces and send each as a separate message, or use a web-based file transfer tool.
BEING RESPONSIVE: Respond to emails as quickly as possible. If you are not in a position to give a detailed response right away, confirm receipt of the message and let the writer know when you will get back to him/her.
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2. EXPERIENCE: Empowering local communities to fight against HIV/AIDS
Working To Empower (WTE) is a youth-led organization focused upon HIV/AIDS education. WTE works to empower local communities by building their capacities to develop and implement community projects and by training local people to work as educators in their communities. WTE has developed a wealth of educational material and documents relating to HIV/AIDS, many of which can be downloaded from their website. Online volunteers have contributed to this database of over 80 resources by helping to develop short educational materials on specific topics requested by members of the organizations’ resource sharing network. Moreover, online volunteers helped translate these resources into 28 languages.
The organization uses these resources in its training programmes and makes them available to the 600 member organizations of its network worldwide ranging from small, locally based operations to governmental bodies. “In terms of the resource sharing programme, online volunteering has been vital and enabled the network to expand and be successful. This project of Working To Empower is more or less powered by the UNVOnline Volunteering service”, says Logan Cochrane, the 24-year old founder and director of the organization.
Online volunteers who supported WTE felt themselves empowered through their volunteer work. Like 20 year old Deo Wasswa, who volunteered from an Internet café in Uganda, translating articles from English to Luganda: “I was motivated to join that organization because of the passion I had to save the lives of my fellow Ugandans who are ignorant about HIV/AIDS. Through the articles I’ve translated I have really widened my level of understanding about HIV/AIDS. It has enabled me to pass this knowledge to people living with HIV/AIDS within my locality, especially to those who can't read and write. I always tell them ways of preventing HIV/AIDS like not sharing needles, and advise pregnant women to go to nearby health centres for PMTCT [Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission]”.
For Luul Y Beraki, an Eritrean expatriate living in the United States of America, translating these texts into her mother tongue Tigrigna was a way to share her skills in support of his home country. “HIV/AIDS is a global issue that needs a firm and strong commitment of teams, organizations, governments and individuals to tackle it. I always anticipate hearing the good news that such combined efforts have, indeed, curbed the magnitude and trend of the global HIV epidemic, that also affects my society” , says Luul, explaining her motivation to volunteer.
Bronner Pamplona Augusto Gonçalves, a medical student from Brazil, chose to work with WTE because “I have a particular interest in the prevention of infectious diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS, and because I have the intention of working as a volunteer in Africa soon. Translating these texts helped me to understand more about the problems that these communities have to face because of HIV/AIDS”.
