Every Childcare, Teaching, Conservation and Medicine Project we run has its own unique management plan. These plans are centred around the UN’s sustainable development goals.
Management plans are one of the ways we ensure short-term volunteer placements are contributing to meaningful, long-term goals. They set us apart as an organisation committed to making sure our volunteers are working towards the bigger picture.
We plan, monitor and evaluate all our projects in close consultation with local communities, conducting regular rigorous impact assessments. This means that you can truly contribute while you learn and grow.
Working towards long-term goals
Each management plan outlines the long-term goals for a particular project. These goals are closely tied to our overarching goals for the specific fields we work in, such as Childcare or Medicine. With a combination of placement-specific goals and more general project type goals, we target very particular issues while also encouraging the global sharing of ideas across placements around the world.
We develop these goals by doing comprehensive needs assessments with members of the local community. This means we collaborate with local people on the ground to establish where we should be focusing our energy and resources.
Using their insights, we draw up a set of goals, which all our volunteers work towards during their project. These goals ensure that every volunteer can make a difference, regardless of the time you can spend on your project, because we’re all working towards the same outcomes.
In short, here’s how management plans help us ensure our projects are making a tangible impact. They:
- Define a clear purpose for our projects
- Document our mission and goals, making sure these are clear to everyone involved in the project; volunteers, staff and partners
- Connect your daily tasks as a volunteer to a greater purpose and a bigger picture
- Help us focus our resources where it’s needed most
- Give more structure to your volunteer work
- Make sure that there is consistency and sustainability in the work of our thousands of volunteers
- Help us monitor and evaluate our impact
Mission and goals of our management plans
Every day, the actions of our volunteers help us work towards our goals and achieve our mission to change the world for the better. To make this a little more tangible, read the examples below.
Example 1: Our Childcare Project mission
Our Childcare Project mission is to provide sustainable educational support, care and protection to disadvantaged children and vulnerable groups to enhance their physical, social, emotional and cognitive development.
As an example of how we work towards this mission, one of the goals for our Childcare Project in Belize is to improve literacy levels in local communities. To achieve this, we’ve collaborated with a local literacy programme that focuses on teaching English reading and writing to school students.
Volunteers on our Childcare Project in Belize take part in literacy lessons, where they work closely with students who are struggling. They also monitor children’s progress so that we can assess where each child needs extra help. These tasks move us closer to the goal of improving literacy, which, in turn, helps us create positive change within communities in Belize.
Example 2: Our Medicine Project mission
Our Medicine Project mission is to enable an exchange of medical knowledge and to better understand global healthcare practices.
In many of the countries we work in, we also provide basic healthcare services and raise awareness of critical healthcare issues and diseases. This empowers local communities, improves quality of life, and opens the door for preventing and treating illnesses and conditions.
As an example of how we work towards this mission, one of the goals of our Medicine internship in Kenya is to encourage knowledge sharing and promote an understanding of medical practices. On this project, Medicine interns shadow doctors in hospitals, gain practical skills at medical workshops, and improve access to basic healthcare for disadvantaged groups by helping out during medical outreaches.
Interns’ daily tasks help move us closer to achieving the goal of sharing insights about medicine and how it is practiced internationally. As we move closer to accomplishing this goal, we take valuable strides towards realising our project and organisation missions.
Our Global Impact Database
To help us achieve our goals at each Childcare, Teaching, Conservation, and Medicine Project, we use our revolutionary Global Impact Database. This secure, anonymous database is a Projects Abroad initiative, conceptualised, set up, and run entirely by our staff and volunteers. We use it to identify specific areas of need, track the development of the children and adults that we work with, and monitor overall progress at each placement.
Each placement is assessed by staff and volunteers to establish what goals we need to work toward. Once we know what we need to do, we set up specialised checklists and profiles in the database and start working towards those goals. In this way, volunteers build on each other’s efforts and progress, and contribute to long-term impact.
Each volunteer is given access to the database once they start their project, and this access is withdrawn when they finish their project and return home.
Through our management plans and Global Impact Database, we make sure you are part of project work that’s worthwhile and tailored to the communities where we work. This means you have the opportunity to contribute to long-term impact and realise your true potential.