BPEACE involves online volunteers to help Afghanistan & Rwanda
13:34, 25 February 2010
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I volunteer with an organization called the Business Council for Peace, BPEACE, a USA-based nonprofit that recruits business professionals to help entrepreneurs in countries emerging from war, like Rwanda and Afghanistan, to create and expand businesses and employment (particularly for women). BPEACE believes more jobs mean less violence.By focusing Bpeace's efforts on Fast Runner entrepreneurs, we count on the reverberation effect that starts with healthier, more sustainable businesses that result in increased employment, equips workers with skills, and contributes to more families experiencing less poverty and less domestic and community violence.
Bpeace volunteers aren't just people with a good heart and, often, they aren't development experts or aid workers. Rather, the volunteers are professionals with particular real-life business skills -- in running a construction company or a cleaning company, in operating a funeral home, in tool making out of scrap metal, in franchising, in operating a gas station and convenience store, and on and on. 75% of the Bpeace volunteers never travel to Afghanistan and Rwanda; the volunteering is done through the Internet, through facilitated conversations by other BPEACE volunteers such as myself. These volunteers develop relationships, in many cases friendships, with the entrepreneurs they assist, and become aware of the realities faced by people in post-conflict countries.
Volunteers that assist BPEACE in finding USA-based business people to mentor entrepreneurs in post-conflict countries and facilitate these relationships are asked to become paid members of BPEACE, contributing nearly 5% of BPEACE's annual budget. Yes, that's right: I pay to volunteer. It makes me feel like an investor in the organization. Well, actually, I am an investor in the organization, literally.
What have I done for BPEACE?
- I started by offering to help recruit professionals in the funeral industry to help mentor a woman entrepreneur in Rwanda (I found out about BPEACE and their need for specialized volunteer recruitment via VolunteerMatch; it's the first assignment I've ever gotten through VolunteerMatch, after several years of trying. But that's a topic for a future blog, and NOT a criticism of VolunteerMatch).
- That got me added to the BPEACE email newsletter, and when a call went out for help writing and editing press releases, I volunteered.
- Then I volunteered to be one of the facilitators to help an entrepreneur connect with a business mentor in the USA, and just a few weeks later, I was charged with assisting a man in Kabul who wants to start a cleaning company. I've written about the experience in detail on my web site, noting exactly what my responsibilities were, challenges I faced etc.
Do you have hard skills starting or running a business of any kind? Food service? Motorcycle repair? Motorcycle repair classes? Computer classes? Raising chickens for meat or eggs? Making furniture? Anything?!? You can turn your business success into something to benefit people in post-conflict countries without ever leaving your home, through volunteering with BPEACE.
