Volunteer Update
September 2024
Our Mission: We’re here to support Ukraine by bringing people together. Our mission is simple:
Helping Ukrainian Learners: We connect Ukrainians with mentors to help them improve their English and offer support during tough times.
Building Personal Connections: We give English-speaking volunteers the opportunity to build personal connections with Ukrainians, leading to a deeper understanding of Ukraine and how the war affects daily life.
Hey Team!
We’ve had a busy few weeks, and we’re so grateful for all of you! Here’s a quick update on what’s happening this September:
Verification & Matching
Rebeca and the team have been working hard to coordinate the student and mentor matching process. A huge thank you to all our new student crew members who’ve jumped in to help! We’re back in full swing and looking for ways to make the process even more effective with the tools we have. Thank you, Rebe!
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Education
Mark is setting up an intranet to make it easier for mentors to find and use teaching resources in Google Workspace. This will simplify adding new content and training tools, all in one place. We’re also focusing on moving group lessons to the Workspace, so all students can easily access them. Still looking for a Group Lesson coordinator (wink wink)!
Engagement
Shaughan is working on getting us seen by the right people. He’s also handling the feedback from students and mentors through his NPS survey, mentor surveys coming soon — keep an eye on your inbox! He’s collaborating with the design group to give us a fresh look and create new content for us to share online. Thanks to Ellen and Araignee for getting involved here!
IT
Val’s been busy setting up the Workspace for hundreds of users. Next up, we’ll be streamlining the onboarding process for new members and tackling the inevitable password reset requests. We’re also planning to create a secure database to keep user data safe and easily accessible for matching and rematching. Early days, so there will be more on this soon.
Leadership
Our main focus right now is transitioning to Google Workspace. Giving each student and mentor a balakun.org email address will enhance user safety, streamline material distribution, increase visibility for group lessons, and help us track activity within the Balakun community. We’re also gathering key milestones to compile a report on Balakun’s first year — there’s so much to share! On top of that, we’re writing our bylaws, which will serve as the core document outlining all the important details about our organization.
Thanks again for everyone’s contribution. There is so much going at the moment. Please support the team leads in any way you can.
Cheers!
San, Christian and Val
