[Health] [announce] Volunteer / deployment matching program

[Yama Ploskonka]

OLE Bolivia is glad to share the intention to start a program to match 
interested volunteers with ICT programs overseas and within the USA.

The intention is to facilitate the process of bringing together the 
needs and availability of OLPC deployments and those using other 
platforms everywhere, to better make use of the talents and willingness 
of enthusiastic people to dedicate their time and efforts to make a 
difference.

Yama Ploskonka will be heading this program, using his experience within 
the ICCP program of the YMCA of Greater New York, a program that brings 
about 3.000 foreign camp counselors to the USA every year while sending 
about 600 American volunteers abroad.

As has been pointed out recently (ref. Bryan Berry presentations) 
something like this needs to be a serious, specialized commitment.  The 
current structure of OLPC is quite clearly not able to handle the 
hundreds of offers of volunteers in a timely and effective way, thus a 
"spin off" to an independent organization seems to make the most sense. 
  Since OLE Bolivia by its very nature is platform-independent, while 
keeping firm links with the OLPC community, we might be better able to 
help here while putting to advantage previous experience in the field of 
international volunteer work.

Comments welcome, as we still need to get some of our act together 
before we can actually launch.

-- 
Yama Ploskonka
Executive Director
OLE Bolivia
http://ole.org