All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - the declaration adopted by the UN General Assembly that declares everyone, everywhere, equal.  It’s the ultimate international document on how all peoples should be treated - with respect, dignity, and rights.  It’s a fundamental piece of writing, because of how powerful it is, and because the UN, an international body containing most nations on the globe, has adopted it as the cornerstone of human rights.

Sign the Declaration here, and voice your support for human rights everywhere. Share your stories and read others’ inspiring experiences here.

We’ve been hearing a lot about Change.org, a website that allows you to submit your great idea for the Obama-Biden administration and vote on others. Of course, there’s service-related goals out there, and we’re finding them and voting on the best ones.

Here’s the ideas I found that might be of interest for service-supporters:
Build a US Public Service Academy
Create a White House office on social innovation
Launch a national service corps to improve local infrastructure
Incorporate social entrepreneurship into the national service plan
Promote international volunteerism with a two-way service corps

You can browse all of the “social entrepreneurship” category here. Submit your own idea in any category by clicking here; suggest the change you want to see.

If you’re a world traveler (or dream of being one), never fear - there are certainly service opportunities for you.  Most people are familiar with the Peace Corps, but there are other service groups that work abroad and need qualified volunteers!

Some organizations require a fee.  Often the program can’t afford to give you room and board, so a fee supports the organization along with your volunteering.  Matador Change has a list of the 10 best opportunities worldwide here. From community development to environmental education, the list is well-rounded in both topics and location - China, Moldova, Ghana, and more appear on the list.

If you can’t afford to pay much of a fee, there are organizations that charge very little or nothing.  And there’s a list for that!  Check out the Matador Change top 10 free programs.

You can also check out Idealist’s list of global volunteer organizations and their International Volunteer Resource Center.

If you’re looking at a volunteer organization abroad and you really want to make change (rather than just have a pretty cool vacation), make sure you ask questions before you go.  Does the organization work with the local community and ask what support people need?  Is the project sustainable - that is, will it continue on after the organization leaves the country?  Are you working on an immediate problem, or trying to change structural issues?  What skills do I need to make sure I can help this project?

ACCESS volunteer Lemor Moses paints a school for poor children in Addis Ababa while an interested party looks on (Ethiopia, Feb. 2008)

December 5th - that’s Friday, for those of you without calendars - is International Volunteer Day, a day to celebrate volunteers and demonstrate the power of service. The twist? The day is international and takes place in countries across the world, from Ireland to Indonesia and Sri Lank to Syria. Check out the list of events here, and get involved here.

IVD is especially focused on the Millennium Development Goals, a list of reacheable, positive initiatives that the UN and countries across the world have created as directives for the future. The MDGs include things like clean water, primary education for all children, and gender equity under the law. Here’s the IVD 2008 Youtube channel.

So go clean up in Kathmandu, celebrate in Cyprus, plant trees in Lebanon - or if you’re stuck at home somewhere, browse their website and send everyone celebrating IVD good thoughts come Friday!

via Have Fun, Do Good

The United Nations offers people a lot of opportunities to volunteer in person - but they’ve recently redone their site for online volunteering. Yes - you can volunteer from the comfort of your local Starbucks! The website allows you to create a profile, then browse volunteering opportunities that fit your interests and expertise.

Your intrepid blogger (ie, me) has registered to investigate (and to find some projects to help out). There’s many translation projects, quite a few web support opportunities, proposal development, researching, editing to be done, among other things. You can sort projects by region, hours per week, focus, and task.

It’s all pretty par for the course as far as volunteering goes; organizations need people to do these things. But then you realize that the translation opportunities are for a human rights group in Cameroon, and the research project will help a Ugandan community center find donors, and that the comic you’re designing will reach Latin American refugees - well, it becomes pretty easy to see how you can really make an impact.

I love finding more and more information about non-traditional service opportunities. It really never occurred to me that online volunteering was even a possibility - but here it is. It sounds trite to say, but it’s so inspiring and innovative how service can work.

You can check out the UN online volunteering site here.

Yes! Teach for America addresses education inequalities here in a successful manner - and people around the world have noted this strategy. Teach for India is a TfA-like program in India that seeks to reform the educational system, and focuses on underserved populations.

The Times of India says:

In India, the programme seeks to provide quality education to the underprivileged across a number of Indian cities, starting with Mumbai and Pune. Rather than find fault with the existing government network of schools, this will be a collaborative effort. Teach For India will work closely with municipal and government authorities, inserting their candidates into key positions in select low-income private and public schools.

In late September, Teach for America announced the Teach for All program, which will provide support for the TfA model throughout the world. Teach for All will start out supporting initiatives in India, South Africa, Estonia, Israel, and Germany.

The power of service is worldwide - and this is just another example!

Typically, Peace Corps volunteers are pictured as fresh graduates, with plenty of energy to get up and save the world. Well, revise your image - the Peace Corps is targeting a new group:

Today, about five per cent of the Peace Corps’ 8,079 volunteers are 50 or older, many of them serving as teachers. The number of applications from people in that age group has jumped nearly 40 per cent this year. That’s 9.4 per cent of the total number of applicants, the highest percentage in the 47-year history of the corps.

(source)

There’s a few reasons for this - the first being more demand. More and more baby boomers are looking to serve as they retire. Second is the fact that elders are respected and revered in many cultures, so older Americans automatically bring a new set of factors.

And on the topic of the Peace Corps - check out this great post from the New Service on Peace Corps & YouTube. Here’s a tour of a PC volunteer’s house in Swaziland:

And I’m back! Change/Wire resumes its regular schedule today. Chicago was lovely, but it’s great to be back.

We’ve seen many articles on youth volunteering, but the Philadelphia Inquirer has a great, in-depth piece on trends in teens doing service abroad.

But [Jenna] Kusek soon gained a new perspective. The white stucco house she shared with other teenage volunteers last summer [in Tanzania] was a mansion by local standards, and better than the concrete-block house they would spend their days building for a local teacher. A cold shower, she realized, was a luxury unavailable to the village kids.

A year after the trip, tears come to her eyes when she talks about how guilty she began feeling about having access to any kind of shower.

Another example of having fun while doing good! The article also talks about just general travel trends for high school students (not related to service), which is pretty interesting, too - more students with means are forgoing Europe in favor of countries in Africa and southeast Asia. Things to think about, and an article worth your time.

The Geotourism Challenge (sponsored by National Geographic and the geniuses at Ashoka) has selected its finalists, and wants you to vote! Wait, what’s geotourism?

The goal of the Geotourism Challenge is to identify and showcase innovators-individuals and organizations- that support the approach known as geotourism: tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place-its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents.

You can use the map to click on different areas and learn about the varying programs. You can also click on the individual programs on the left. It’s really impressive - each finalist has such a detailed and rich approach.

I’m leaning towards Banyan Tree Maldives Marine Labs, which is a villa resort with a focus on marine education, or 3 Sisters Adventure Tracking in Nepal, which takes a collaborative, feminist approach to Himalayan tourism. Thoughts?

Photo credit Himalayan Homestays
A snow leopard from the Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust, another candidate