National Volunteer Week 2020: 18 - 24 May Our Volunteers 1 | SAcommunity

Submitted by SAcommunity on Mon, 05/18/2020 - 22:20

Pictured (L - R): Lan Pham, Erin, Anmoldeep (back), Samantha Whillas, Audrey Menz, Farhana Razeen, Niru Amarakoon. Our team took this photo on 3 March 2020 before our volunteer program moved to Working From Home (WFH).

Meet our Tuesday Connecting Up Volunteers (and our Intern)
How time flies, we took this photo of our Tuesday Volunteer group a short time back on 3 March 2020 before our program transitioned to working from home using remote tools.

National Volunteer Week provides us with an opportunity to thank our volunteers for their contribution to our SAcommunity service, to highlight the amazing skills our volunteer team use to assist us, to share their learning successes, and their volunteering and career goals.

Lan Pham
Lan joined Connecting Up last year and was able to volunteer with us intermittently between tutoring, she wrote about her volunteering experience at that time >>here. Lan joined us for her last day in March where we were pleased to find that her tuition work has escalated and is now continuing her work in education and teaching. Stay in touch Lan!

Erin
Erin has been a volunteer at Connecting Up for 2 and a half years she is a graduate of TAFE SA studying certificates in Business Administration, also specialising in Health/Medical Administration and Accounts/Bookkeeping Administration.

Erin began volunteering at Connecting Up while she was studying Business Administration and was looking for hands on administrative experience in an office environment. In this time she has gained a great deal of knowledge and skills in office admin, digital literacy, databases, team and management software, communicating by phone and email with a range of people across community services. In addition Erin has been able to contribute her skills in video editing and video production to create e-learning training modules for Connecting Up's SAcommunity service.

Erin is looking forward to utilising her studies, skills and experience in a rewarding role in administration, in particular she aims to pursue her interests in information and records.

Erin has previously written about her volunteering experiences >>here

Anmoldeep Sighn (Intern)
Anmoldeep has joined us as an intern for his Professional Year at Performance Education. He is using his Bachelor in Business (Information System Management) to analyse the volunteer program and we will look forward to hearing from him and building on his assessment throughout his 12 weeks with Connecting Up.

Samantha Whillas
Samantha Whillas is currently a student at Flinders University and studies an Advanced Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Screen and Media and minoring in Drama. She is also studying a Bachelor of Letters in Creative Writing concurrently. Sam’s studies allow her to pursue her interests in the dissemination of information (particularly in news) politics, culture and the arts, and the interconnected and dependant relationship between them.

Samantha joined the Connecting Up team with the desire to be a part of something that could support and give back to the community. She believes it will be a great opportunity to continue to gain practical skills in an Adelaide-based workplace, following her return from five months living, studying and travelling in Canada. She is looking forward learn more in the areas of administration, communication and content creation and meet new people while also helping to make a difference in the community.

Whilst at Connecting Up Samantha has joined the team in utilising a range of office based and remote tech tools including Office365, Microsoft Teams, Zoom video conferencing, 3CX softphones and Slack messenger to keep her connected with staff and other volunteers and the SAcommunity database to maintain web-based community information. Samantha's published stories on SAcommunity can be found >>here https://sacommunity.org/blog/19585

Audrey Menz
Audrey Menz is a recent graduate of a Bachelor of Creative Arts, Creative Writing, at Flinders University. She has been published in print in The Empire Times magazine and online in Tulpa magazine. Audrey is currently volunteering online as both a Slush and Star Chamber Reader for Ember and Spark magazines by Empire and Great Jones Publishing.

Audrey is volunteering with Connecting Up in order to have an opportunity to continue to create storytelling articles and publish her writing. In addition, she aims to put into practice her digital and information literacy skills whilst gaining hands-on administrative experience in an office position, bringing to the organisation her eight years experience in retail and hospitality customer service.

Audrey aspires to work within the library or publishing industry to bring her passion for literature and writing into a work environment. She also plans to launch a new, Adelaide based young adult literary magazine and publish a novel-sized work of her own.

Whilst volunteering remotely for Connecting Up she has utilized a variety of office administration tools including Microsoft Teams and Office365, 3CX softphones, Slack messenger, and Zoom conferencing calls. Audrey has completed data entry and digital research for the SAcommunity online directory, having additionally conducted interviews and research in the development of stories and articles she has published in the SAcommunity blog and newsletter which can be found >>here https://sacommunity.org/blog/19595

Farhana Razeen
Farhana volunteered with us for a short while before moving into an established career in supply chain management. However, she writes this of her experience:

"Thank you very much for the opportunity given to me to become a part of the SA Community Volunteering team at Connecting Up. Although it was for a short period, I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with you and the team. I am truly grateful for the opportunity provided to share my experience and skills for the betterment of the community with your guidance. I am sad to leave this organization, but I look forward to this new chapter in my life: pursuing a career in Supply Chain as I have always desired."

Nirupama Amarakoon
Niru has volunteered with Connecting Up since September 2019 and has written of her experience >>here and more recently below:

As a post-graduate diploma holder in Information Systems and Project Management, my aim is to pursue a career in the not-for-profit sector in Australia. I am undertaking volunteer work at Connecting Up to learn more about the local culture and the community sector, improve my career development, and guide me to paid employment opportunities. Meanwhile, I’m undertaking Training and Assessment Certificate IV as well to get a sound knowledge of the Australian vocational education and training sector.

Connecting Up helps me to gain valuable technical skills such as Power BI, Microsoft Teams, Office365 and database skills. Communicating with customers, corresponding with the members of the community, and working with my colleagues allowed me to improve my soft skills as well. Currently, I'm engaging in customer inquiries and verifying and editing content on the SAcommunity directory. Not only that but the staff and my fellow volunteers supported me to complete my practical delivery sessions of training and assessment to a great extent.

Above all, the most promising program that Connecting Up rewards to its volunteers are volunteer mentor sessions, which enables us to pick one of the permanent staff members and allow us to hang out with them and share their experiences and gain career guidance. My mentor is Bahar Forghani the program officer of Infoxchange who provides me with tips on connecting with people and to enhance my skills in the community development sector in Australia.

Working as a volunteer has always been rewarding, not only can you give something back to the community, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the role and the opportunities it presented to me. During my tenure as a volunteer at Connecting Up, I hope to gain more exposure in project management, expand my technical and soft skills, and pave the way for a bright future in this field.

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National Volunteer Week 2020: 18 - 24 May Our Volunteers 1

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