From your social media

Volunteers and participants can share pictures and videos on their social media stories during the activity and tag the relevant SCI organisations (their sending and hosting organisations for example), who can decide to share the content on their accounts as well.

This will make the communication of the activities very personal and interesting for the audience, who will feel like they have a “behind-the-scenes” access to what is happening in SCI.

Reels and posts at the end of the activity are also very interesting, providing a more comprehensive reflection on the whole activity.

In both instances, it is valuable when volunteers and participants post content that expresses the entirety of the activity, from the volunteering/learning part, to the fun activities together.

As a volunteer posting, make sure:

• Your profile is public
• You have the consent of people around you to take their picture/video
• You informed them that you want to publicly share image online for promotion purposes and they consent
• You post content according to ethical principles

As an organisation, make sure that before the activity:

• You share your social media handles with your volunteers and participants
• You encourage them to share content with you
• You give them some tips on ethical communication
• You have the consent to use the images your receive

On SCI communication channels

Another way to share volunteers’ and participants’ experience is to create content to be shared on SCI’s communication channels. Volunteers and participants can:

• Write an article about the activity, in the form of a report, or in the form of a “Voices of Volunteers” (the personal journey and perspective of the participant) 
• Share picture and/or videos about the experience
• Together with the organisation, organise a live during the activity, or an online event afterwards to directly engage with the audience
• Together with the organisation, plan a social media takeover
• Propose other ideas and be creative!

This content is interesting for the volunteer’s host organisation, sending organisation, and the International Secretariat. Organisations who receive this content can share it with each other.

In-person activities

Volunteers and participants can share their inspiring stories with their local community during in-person events. Depending on volunteers’ and organisations’ connections and the local reality, volunteers can:

• Share their experience with other SCI volunteers during the local SCI events dedicated to promotion of volunteering opportunities,
• Give presentations at their school, university, workplace, youth centre, or any other community centre or event that is available to them,
• Distribute promotional material and share their experience at school, university, student or volunteering fair, …
• Casually talk to your friends and people you meet about your experience.

Volunteers and participants can inspire people around them to volunteer, and an in-person, face-to-face testimonial is always very powerful.

ACTIVITY

Exercise: You are now following this online learning course. This is an SCI activity in and of itself. Think about your motivations for following the course, your initial expectations, what you discovered along the way, and reasons why someone else might want to take this course. Now, create:

• a social media story
• a social media post
• a descriptive article
• a voice of volunteers article
• a presentation

about your experience with the course. Your audience are other SCI volunteers or potential volunteers, and your goal is to inspire them to follow the course as well.

Explore the different ways of promoting an SCI activity (this course) from a participant’s perspective, and feel free to send it to us if you want it published!

Checklist for volunteers/participants

I am participating in an activity with SCI, and I want to share what I am doing:

• ✅I know the handles of my organisations
• ✅I asked people around me if I can take pictures and videos of them to share publicly
• ✅I took pictures and videos during the activity, respecting people’s privacy wishes
• ✅I posted content according to SCI’s values and ethical communication principles
• ✅I wrote an inspiring article/made an inspiring video and shared it with SCI