Welcome to my professional blog, where I provide advice, commentary, news and announcements related to nonprofits, non-governmental organizations (ngos), communications, community engagement, volunteerism, aid & development, management and women’s empowerment.
Whereas my web site is for my resources, provided in the form of articles and guidelines, my blog is more for commentary and dynamic content and discussion with others.
For many years, I blogged almost weekly; now, I blog twice a month, on the first and third Monday of the month, unless there is something I urgently feel the need to say or share. I also sometimes take time off from blogging.
I’m an internationally-recognized trainer, researcher and consultant. My work is focused on communications, volunteer involvement, community engagement, and management for nonprofits, NGOs, and government initiatives. I’m considered a pioneer regarding the research, promotion and practice of virtual volunteering, including virtual teams, microvolunteering and crowdsourcing, and I’m a veteran manager of various local and international initiatives. Here’s the full story about me.
Many people know my work under the banner of Coyote Communications. That’s still me. But I’m using Coyote Broad more and more because I am writing more and more about travel, adventure and other subjects far beyond my professional work.
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I tweet the same things I post to Mastodon. I am reconsidering my use of Twitter, however, per the disturbing actions of the owner.
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History of my blog
This blog used to be on posterous.com; sadly, posterous was bought and dismantled by Twitter. Before that, I used forumer.com for years as my blog host, because it was simple and blogs on the site could be read by people using older operating systems. I was satisfied until my last year on the site, when customer service became non-existent and the site became wretchedly slow.
Dear Jane,
I read your post about recommendations to the mother of the 16 girl who wanted to travel abrod volunteering.
Your recommendations were exactly what I needed to hear, sadly, it would been helpful a couple of years ago.
I’m 26 years old, from Uruguay (south America). I studied International Studies pursuing a career in the humanitarian sector because I’m interested in working in cooperation for development. I have some diplomas in cooperation and a Master in Organizational Change (Knowledge Management) but I have the feeling I centered my background in education when it should have better to do more volunteering or try to develop projects for my community.
I tried applying at NGOs and International Organizations but of course I don’t have the experience required.
In Uruguay, I worked in Logistics to help to pay my master and saved some money (you don’t have much opportunities). After finishing my master I decided that if I don’t pursue my objectives now, soon it will be to late.
I came to Panama for volunteer work at the World Food Programme in the communications and knowledge management unit. I loved the experience and had the opportunity to do real tasks.
Currently I am doing a 3 month internship for the IFRC (the federation of red cross) in the resource mobilization unit, also in Panama.
I started french classes (I saw the importance at the WFP) and I’m improving my english. (Spanish is my mother tongue, please excuse my mistakes in english).
I know working in this sector has a mix of happy and hard times. I am realist, I want to work for improving the world we live on but I know is not always easy and I expect some hardships on the way.
I’m eager to work in development and I’d appreciate any recommendation or some experience from you part that could be helpful for my career.
Thanks a lot!! Love your blog.
King regards,
Maia
Hey, Maia, write me at jc@coyotecommunications.com – I would really like to offer some advice for you. You have more going for you than you might think!
Hi Jayne,
Not going to lie feeling a bit weird just writing this in a blog comment but what can one do. See I’m a university student from Poland studying ethnolinguistics with a specialization in Vietnamese, which sounds as ridiculous as it is. However, it’s the main point of my issue you see my parents are pushing me to voluntourism. They decided it would be beneficial for me to spend at least a month in Vietnam to practice the language and since there is, unfortunately, quite a gap between me and my friends in terms of affordability I can’t just go traveling with someone. My parents are scared to let me travel that far alone unless I could be a volunteer (???) I’m not sure what’s up with that. At first, it didn’t sound like a terrible idea but the more I researched the more I started to resent it. That’s how I found out what voluntourism is and how I found your blog. I don’t know what m trying to do, it’s a bit desperation if anything. You don’t need to respond but I would gladly appreciate some ideas on how I can possibly please my parent without engaging in voluntourism or at least not too harmful rendition of it (if that’s even possible).
As I said you don’t need to respond. Love your work
Kind regards,
Alex
PS: I don’t even like my degree I’m planning to apply for photography, unfortunately even if I do get in it won’t save me from this mess
Your parents will be setting you up to HARM PEOPLE if they have you do voluntourism in Vietnam. You need to make it clear that volutourism in South East Asia SPECIFICALLY is where most horror stories come from – of children in orphanages who are there because their parents are paid for them to be there, so they can be available for photos and meaningless activities with foreigners, activities that puts them at risk for sexual harm. Or of baby animals abducted from their parents, with their parents killed, and the animals held in “rescues” where “volunteers” take photos with them – the animals are sold to horrific zoos or private collectors, or killed, when they are older.
If you want to travel to Vietnam on the cheap, buy a copy of Lonely Planet Vietnam or Rough Guide Vietnam and come up with your own itinerary. And look at this list of credible NGOs and see what they do, and maybe write one and say, “Hey, I will be in Vietnam on these dates, staying near your NGO, and I was wondering if I could do a site visit and take photos and include your story in the blog I am going to write.”
https://www.ngocentre.org.vn/content/ngo-activities