Miguel is 25 years old from Viseu, Portugal.
This is his first volunteering experience abroad. Miguel is volunteering in Sende for one month while learning how to run a coworking & coliving space, practicing Spanish, and all of this while getting mentored on his career plans by the Sende team.
Mentoring advices between Miguel and Sende:
- Miguel would love to continue traveling the world while volunteering. At the same time, he would like to start his own association.
Sende recommended creating one NGO that would be focused on youth mobility of youngsters from Viseu (we can hear in the interview with Miguel that he thinks how his peers do not have an idea about mobility and traveling opportunities. They don’t know about Erasmus + or Work and travel or WWOOFF programs).
Starting an NGO could be real social cause that solves real problem: To send young people from Viseu to see and to experience the world.
At the same time, Miguel could travel while accompanying fellow youngsters from his town. This solution would help him personally, and help others.
His only role would be to get in contact with organizations of the world and send them the PIF (partner identification form) which will make his organization official partner that could send people abroad.
There is a very low barrier to accomplish this solution. It’s easy and doable.
2. Miguel would like to become a music creator and producer, while getting experience in USA.
Sende recommends that Miguel creates the list in excel with 100 music studios, especially ones that are part of NGOs (because there is higher probability to get accepted) and to write the email (or to call) all hundred of them to ask to get internship or volunteering experience in these studios in exchange for food, accommodation and plane ticket.
Another solution would be to find programs like Work and travel in the same industry, to apply and to travel there as a volunteer
3. Miguel needed a better way to organize his tasks and in case he opens his NGO, he would need a organizational system.
Sende shared with Miguel Sende’s organizational system which is made in Notion.so software. Also, team of Sende created one Notion document to manage the collaboration with 3 volunteers (one of them is Miguel).
Like this, Miguel was learning about new process and the software while participating in it:
Screenshot from the Notion
We believe that mentoring work with new volunteers is so valuable. A proper match between a mentor and a volunteer is crucial.
Most of the basic career skills and experiences can be boosted and accelerated while cooperating with a mentor and we would recommend that each volunteer, gets frequent feedback while being encouraged to get curious.
