Volunteers Archives

Volunteer team bis (Teaching LSP – Season 5)

Posted on 15 May 2023 by Frans Oosterholt

At the end of the CATAPULT project, a sustainability plan was drawn up for the CATAPULT platforms: the Community of Practice LinguaCoP and its matching tool Linguaclick. In this plan we unfold two phases for the further development of our platforms. The first phase (2021-2022) focuses on consolidation and expansion and on fundraising to meet all our ambitions. In the second phase (from 2022-2023), we will maximize the potential of LinguaCoP with the help of new investments. In the first phase we will put together a team of volunteers to develop into a professional team in the second phase to support the exploitation of LinguaCoP and Linguaclick.

For which activities are we looking for volunteers?

1 content curation

2 events development

3 publicity

Content curation

In order to remain attractive to the community, it is vital to regularly offer new content related to language training in general and our events in particular: notifications, news in blog posts, topics in our forums, resources… The content volunteers team will strive to identify and share as much content as possible relevant for freelance language and LSP professionals.

Events development

LinguaCoP will organize events around themes related to language training and LSP in particular. The volunteers of the events team help in selecting themes, finding, contacting and guiding suitable speakers for webinars.

Publicity

The volunteers of the publicity team ensure that everyone involved in language training, inside and outside the CoP, is informed as much as possible about the activities of the CATAPULT platforms: the Community of Practice LinguaCoP and its matching tool Linguaclick.

Volunteers can sign up for one or more volunteer teams. The selected volunteers will, if they wish, be presented as official collaborators of the CATAPULT platforms on a special Meet the Team page.

You can leave any questions or comments in a comment on this post, or in this Forum: https://linguacop.eu/forums/forum/volunteers/

Please note, to comment on this post or in our Forums, you must register: https://linguacop.eu/register/

If you prefer, you can also send a message to this email address: volunteers[at]linguacop.eu

Creating pathways to employment for immigrants through language learning

Posted on 19 April 2023 by Frans Oosterholt

Thanks to the European Social Fund, the ‘Bremen Integration Qualification’ (BIQ) project provides not only language lessons free of charge for young immigrants in Bremen, five days a week, but also lessons in mathematics and IT, which allow them to improve their maths and computer skills while gaining experience for an apprenticeship. Since the start of the project nearly 900 young immigrants have benefited from these opportunities. Managed by the Red Cross, BIQ is already providing support to young people fleeing the war in Ukraine.

Picture: (cc) Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour and Europe in Bremen

Language barriers and the importance of language learning for refugee and migrant communities in Europe

Posted on 5 February 2023 by Frans Oosterholt

Migrant people often travel to Europe through many countries before reaching their destination. Each country they enter has different cultures and customs, and language plays a major role in facilitating or hindering their journey.

Understanding and being able to communicate in a language allows us to access information and make informed decisions. For thousands of people living in transit and in refugee camps, language barriers are a difficult reality of everyday life. They often rely on information from refugees and friends who have gone through the same experience, especially because local authorities, humanitarian aid workers, and volunteers do not usually speak their languages. Refugees and displaced persons are exposed to more threats to their lives when they do not speak the local language. In some refugee camps, volunteers offer language lessons to bridge the gap left by government institutions that have failed to address the needs and rights of refugees. Generally, they can only get professional linguistic help from interpreters and translators via non-profit organisations and NGOs.

Read the rest of this blog here: https://openculturalcenter.org/language-barriers-and-the-importance-of-language-learning-for-refugee-and-migrant-communities-in-europe/

Open Cultural Center supports migrants and refugees in Spain and Greece by offering free language classes, with the aim to support refugees’ integration and improve their chances of accessing training and employment opportunities.

The OPORA Platform

Posted on 20 December 2022 by Frans Oosterholt

Opora developed and operates an online platform launched in March 2022 using which Ukrainians looking for sponsors can find UK sponsors for the Government Homes for Ukraine scheme, creating a more structured way for the two communities to connect as an alternative to social media whilst allowing Ukrainians retain agency and choice in the process.

The Opora platform is evolving into a support hub for Ukrainians in the UK, offering direct assistance to Ukrainian arrivals from our growing network of partners, from travel, baby supplies and tailored employment opportunities and business grants for long-term sustainable support. Leveraging the platform allows our partners to make tailored offers of support to Ukrainians communities and beneficiaries.

Language training for refugees by professionals and volunteers

Posted on 9 November 2022 by Frans Oosterholt

Few will dispute the need for refugees to learn the language of the host country as quickly as possible. But we all know that the government does not always provide the means to have the refugees trained by professionals. What would your reaction be, as a professional language trainer, if there are not enough resources for paid language training?

In the project ‘VOLUNTEERS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING FOR REFUGEES’, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union they come up with an interesting solution to make language training cheaper without undermining the position of the professionals: teachers involve volunteers in their language training for refugees.

They even made a toolkit for language teachers who want to work well with volunteers, in order to support refugees to learn the language of their new country.

You can access their site here: https://volunteersinlanguagelearning.eu/
And the toolkit for teachers here: https://volunteersinlanguagelearning.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Toolkit_for_Teacher_EN_30.08.19.pdf

Image by Laura Shaw from Pixabay

Volunteer team

Posted on 16 November 202117 November 2021 by Frans Oosterholt