Name of community agency/organization:

South Asians For Life

Position title:
We offer various roles for volunteering including:
Event help/marketing/planning/co-ordinating

Organizing a successful event of any scale requires both logistical and strategic planning..
Your thoughts on what would make the event a success would be useful, your experience in recruiting volunteers would be an asset, and your out-going personality would be vital in speaking to the public about our cause. Actual events require promotion (flyers, emails, radio spots etc.) that

must be carefully crafted and tailored to the specific market, as well as setting up and staffing booths. We host periodic meetings where we gather input and make decisions; again, your thoughts will be welcome.

IT support

Duties might involve web design & implementation, managing social networking sites
and answering queries, building ad hoc networks from available machines including
multiple OSs, tracking client data, collating information, and preparing reports.

Fundraising

As a non-profit organization, our members are all volunteers. There are expenses that
need to be met from time-to-time. Your experience in writing grants/proposals, getting
donations (monetary & gifts in-kind), is invaluable.

Description of community agency/organization:
South Asians for Life (SA4L) is a non-profit collective with the purposeof promoting the health and well-being, primarily within (but not restricted to) the underserved South Asian community. We work closely with many groups notably, Canadian Blood Services (One Match) and are completely non-partisan. Our group grew as a result of one of our friends who was diagnosed with leukemia and needed to find a stem cell donor. Our efforts were successful in grossly increasing the South Asian component of Canada's stem cell registry. A match for our friend was found.

Our current focus is to raise awareness and reverse the shortage of stem cell/bone marrow potential donors in Canada's donor registry, primarily the under-represented segments.

What you will do:
As our event dates become final, we will need volunteers to help make the event a success. The roles are described above.

Skills required:

You must have a willingness to learn!
Other assets include an outgoing personality, ability to work with the public, computer know-how as well as marketing & sales savvy.

Skills you will learn:
You will learn a great deal about stem cells, blood donation, the diseases stem cells are used to treat as well as social volunteerism. There will also be emphasis on event planning/co-ordinating, computer skills, aspects of the health field, marketing, decision making, dealing with non- governmental organizations and diverse (multi-faith and culture) audiences and much more. You will gain an appreciation for the global nature/impact of donor registries and the issues surrounding them.

We will train you to be able to educate a diverse group of clients in the area of stem cell and bone marrow donation.

You will have the ability to broaden your network of professional contacts.

Length of time required:
The time-frame will depend upon the event. We recognize that school is a priority and we encourage that. We will happily take what help you can provide; though from time-to-time, some advance commitment may be required. Our activities run year round though you might be interested to commit to only one event for starters.

Location:
Various (GTA).

Contact person:
Soumo Mukherjee

How to get involved/How to apply:
Please e-mail your résumé/CV to soumo.m@gmail.com and indicate what role you see yourself in. Please tell us what your expectations are and what your availability is. Do not hesitate to ask any questions. If necessary, call 647-367-4406. E-mail is preferred.

Website (under development) www.SA4L.org. In the meantime, visit www.sa4l.wordpress.com

 

The Peel board has reviewed this volunteer posting to make sure it meets the criteria for the community involvement requirement. However, this posting is provided as a service to students--it is not intended to be an endorsement by the Peel District School Board of any specific organization or program.

 

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