Our next Volunteer Orientation Weekend, (VOW), will be held in Washington, DC, February 18-20, 2011. This will include an evening networking dinner on Friday, February 18, and then two full days of activities on Saturday, February 19 and Sunday, February 20. The detailed agenda and location information will be sent to those interested in a later email.
This Orientation Training is for anyone interested in learning more about PBI’s work and especially for prospective field volunteers and/or PBI-USA volunteers. The VOW is popular with attendees and includes interactive role playing and informational sessions led by former field volunteers and PBI staff. You’ll learn about our history, mission, vision, non-violent strategy of protective accompaniment which includes field protection, international advocacy and education, and security analysis, and the day to day experience of being a field volunteer. The weekend includes a fun social networking event and presentations from national human rights partner organizations in the DC area.
Registration is required for all participants - please review the <media 7259>registration form </media>for more information. A modest registration fee covers food and material costs. Registration forms are due to the PBI office no later than February 16, 2011 with your payment at the address listed below. So that we can save your place, we recommend you email the registration form back as soon as possible and then mail in a copy with your payment. We are offering an early-bird rate of $35 if you register by February 10; however the rate increases to $45 if you register between February 11 and February 16.
We have a new volunteer support coordinator, Matt Messier, so further questions that aren’t directly related to the Volunteer Orientation Weekend in Washington, DC, but are related to field Projects and the application process should be directed to him at matt_messier2000(at)yahoo.com.
Additionally, PBI has just announced that we are closing our Indonesia Project for the present time due to Indonesian government polices making it impossible to do our work protecting Human Rights Defenders in Indonesia, and especially Papua. For those who were specifically interested in volunteering with PBI in Indonesia, we are sorry that this opportunity is no longer available. In addition to our four current Projects—Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia and Nepal--we have plans to open an additional Project team in Kenya in the coming years.
If you have any questions or need additional information regarding the Volunteer Orientation Weekend, please do not hesitate to call or email our office.
We look forward to hearing from you soon and meeting you at our Volunteer Orientation Weekend
Best Regards,
Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh
Executive Director
Peace Brigades International-USA
1326 9th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
202-232-0142 voice
202-232-0143 fax
505-480-9008 cell
