Volunteer Resources
This page contains various resources for our volunteers. It includes links to online training courses, recommended reading, career development advice, funding resources and more.
All resources are provided by third parties and links will take you to other websites.
Resources for Volunteering Abroad Funding
We recommend you first look for funding through your own university as they sometimes provide one-off grants for this purpose. However, you may also be able to get funding through one of these resources:
- Go Overseas – Yearly one-off $500 grant available to volunteer with a partner organisation
- Omprakash – Quartely one-off grants available to volunteer with a partner organisation
- Jack Petchey Foundation – Funding to those looking to help disadvantaged young people, including through volunteering abroad. (£300 limit per person)
- Volunteer Forever – Allows users to ‘crowdsource’ from other users, friends & family
- Volunteer Forever Potential Funding List – Comprehensive list of potential sources of funding
Online Training and Career Resources
Introduction to Children’s Rights
A series of introductory resources on Children’s Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, from CRIN, the Child’s Rights International Network.
Explore the resources available here: https://www.crin.org/en/guides/introduction-childrens-rights
Children’s Human Rights – An Interdisciplinary Introduction – Free Online Course
A free online course from the University of Geneva, providing an overview of the most important features of children’s human rights. You will need to register for a free account with Coursera.
Find out more and enrol here: https://www.unige.ch/cide/fr/formations/formations-distance/mooc-childrens-human-rights-interdisciplinary-introduction/
Child Rights and Why They Matter – Free Online Course
A free online course from UNICEF, providing an understanding of child rights and a child rights approach and introducing you to UNICEF’s mandate as it relates to child rights. You will need to register for a free account with the Agora e-learning platform.
Find out more here: https://agora.unicef.org/course/info.php?id=11073#
Child Protection: Children’s Rights in Theory and Practice – Free Online Course
A free 14 week online course from Harvard, where you can learn how to protect children from violence, exploitation, and neglect through law, policy, and practice in a human rights framework.
Read more here: https://www.humanrightscareers.com/magazine/harvard-launches-free-online-course-on-childrens-human-rights/
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
Find out more about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international human rights treaty, signed by almost every country in the world, which sets out the human rights of children.
Read about the CRC on UNICEF’s website, here: https://www.unicef.org/crc/
Caring for Children Moving Alone: Protecting Unaccompanied and Separated Children
Find out more about the care and protection of unaccompanied and separated refugee and migrant children who are moving across and between countries. The course focuses on the improvement of policy, practice and delivery of support services that uphold children’s rights and meet their best interests. The course is directed by the Center for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection (CELCIS), based in the University of Strathclyde.
United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child
Find out more about the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the UN body that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by countries around the world.
Read more here: https://ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CRC/Pages/CRCIndex.aspx
Sustainable Development Goals
Explore the United Nations knowledge platform for the sustainable development goals, here: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300
Street Children Resources
A free-to-use online library containing the largest collection of street children related research, reports and articles, brought to you by the Consortium for Street Children.
Browse the resources here: https://www.streetchildrenresources.org
Introduction to Child Protection
This short course describes the work of UNICEF in the field of Child Protection. In this course, you will explore the goals, programmes, challenges and achievements of child protection work. You will need to register for free on the Agora e-learning platform.
Find out more here: https://agora.unicef.org/course/info.php?id=915
Child safeguarding tools and guidance
This resource library contains documents and publications collated by Keeping Children Safe on issues of child safeguarding. All resources are free to download or read online.
Browse the resources here: https://www.keepingchildrensafe.org.uk/how-we-keep-children-safe/capacity-building/resource-library
Knowhow Nonprofit
Knowhow Nonprofit, from the NCVO, offers advice and support for voluntary organisations, including a range of resources and training opportunities.
Explore the resources here: https://knowhownonprofit.org
How Charities Work
This website from the NCVO provides a simple introduction to how UK registered charities are run and how you can help them make a difference to the causes you care about.
Find out more here: https://howcharitieswork.com
Civicus Toolkits
CIVICUS is a global alliance of civil society organisations and activists dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society throughout the world. They have a variety of online resources and toolkits, covering a wide range of topics.
Explore the resources here: https://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-center/resources/toolkits
Nonprofit Ready
Nonprofit Ready provides free online training to help nonprofit and social sector professionals deliver on their missions.
Explore the resources here: https://www.nonprofitready.org
Reliefweb
ReliefWeb is the leading humanitarian information source on global crises and disasters, provided by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). It is also a excellent platform for searching international jobs and training opportunities in the development and humanitarian sector.
Browse the site here: https://reliefweb.int
Impactpool
Impactpool is a career platform devoted to provide the best possible support to people who want to pursue a career within mission-driven organisations. It provides job listings for the development and humanitarian sectors, as well as a range of career development resources.
Find out more here: https://impactpool.org
Idealist
Idealist (www.idealist.org) is all about connecting idealists – people who want to do good – with opportunities for action and collaboration. It features job and volunteer vacancy listings and a careers advice section at https://idealistcareers.org/
With more than 120,000 organizations and 1.4 million monthly visitors to the English, and Spanish (idealistas.org) sites, Idealist helps people move from intention to action all over the world.
UNICEF Peru
Explore UNICEF’s work in Peru.
Browse the site here: https://www.unicef.org/peru/spanish/
UNDP / PNUD Peru
Explore the UN Development Agency’s work in Peru.
Browse the site here: http://www.pe.undp.org
International Women’s Health and Human Rights
A free online course from Stanford University focussing on women’s health and human rights issues from infancy through old age, including information about positive interventions relating to those issues.
Find out more and enrol here: https://www.coursera.org/learn/womens-health-human-rights