When a volunteer is working for several months in a project with asylum seekers and refugees, for example in form of an international long-term project or regular activities, some questions have to be considered. When volunteers are placed directly in reception centers for asylum seekers, they could easily replace employees, which has to be avoided.

We collected some basic Do’s and Don’ts for tasks of SCI volunteers:

Don’t-s 

Substitution of employees, for example:

• Administrative work
• Main responsibility for individuals (as the needed education is missing on the volunteers’ side and therefore the refugees would be unprofessionally accompanied)

Do-s (good example of tasks for long-term volunteers):

• Management of local volunteers’ activities in centers. For instance in The Refugee Project, co-coordinated by CVS Bulgaria, local volunteers sign up for activities and lessons that they want to give for 4 months, 2 hours or more per week. The long-term volunteer’s task is to coordinate these local volunteers and activities (prepare volunteers agreements, communicating, scheduling but not being present him-/herself).
• Empowerment projects for refugees: coordinate refugees offering language courses, cooking classes and asking the local participants for donations (example from an Austrian organization KAMA), supporting the organization of intercultural evenings, human libraries, etc.)
• Offer research and link asylum seekers to existing structures (first map offers from NGO’s active in the field and then create a database project with local offers).