Volunteering online – today’s challenges

Abstract

The article examines the issue of online volunteering in Ukraine and the world as a whole. The concepts of volunteering and e-volunteering are defined. Current data is presented on the state of volunteering in Ukraine amidst the pandemic according to the survey «Volunteering during quarantine», which took place in August 2020. 4148 respondents from all over Ukraine took part in the survey. The study was conducted by U-Report - an international youth project of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The focus is on available online resources for potential volunteers in response to the challenges of volunteering activities that have arisen on quarantine restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The following online opportunities are described: Ukrainian Volunteer Service, Ukraїner, National Holodomor Museum with the initiative to digitize the history of eyewitnesses to the events of that time, the #FINDWAY project.
 One type of remote volunteering is considered to be hotlines; the My Telephone Friend project, the Children's National Hotline of the La Strada-Ukraine International Women's Human Rights Center, the free Legal Aid Hotline, and others.
 The «Fundamentals of Volunteering» course of the all-Ukrainian Public Center «Volunteer» is analyzed, which has online lectures in the format of picture-links: volunteering, who a volunteer is, the skills and abilities of a volunteer, volunteer opportunities.
 The English-language book The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook by D. Kravens and S. J. Ellis is examined, which addresses how to successfully lead online volunteers and develop virtual volunteer assignments, from microvolunteering to long-term projects.
 The content of the report «Are technologies capable of opening access to volunteering instead of creating new barriers?», which was considered during the Global Technical Meeting 2020 on Voluntary Activities, is analyzed.