Volunteer

When applying to become a mentor, it’s important to remember that you’re volunteering with children, or at least with young adults, which is to be taken seriously. Many youths struggle emotionally and require someone approachable to listen, empathise and give advice where it’s asked. The best advice is always to let the youths come up with the answers themselves; to help them understand the options, potential outcomes, implications and the end results. As a mentor, volunteering with children is extremely rewarding but also heavy at times. You can choose your own hours of availability and display this on our website for youths to book your time. This volunteer work requires people with emotional intelligence, stable personal life and a high sense of reliability.

Ideally, you stick to your commitments because when volunteering with children and youths, stability and dependability are essential. However, if life gets in the way, it’s best you communicate with the main event coordinator and try and suggest a replacement as soon as possible. Any replacements will need to be police checked also to ensure the attendees are in a safe environment. If you can’t replace yourself, the entire event may need to be cancelled.

Unfortunately we wont be accepting applications from those who have been in trouble with the law. We take volunteering with children very seriously and although your incident may be minor and you’re a good person, we cannot take any risks with youths. We hope you understand and we appreciate your goodwill, none the less.

When you apply to become a volunteer with WoW, you’re asked to commit for a minimum period of three months and to ensure you don’t leave anyone hanging. Tie up all loose ends and If it’s not for you, no worries, at least you tried. WoW will guide you through the exit process to minimise any impact on the youths. In most cases we will happily write recommendations for you to add to your CV, or LinkedIn profile.

If you’re over 30 years of age, we would still love your help. You may not be working directly as a mentor because the older we get, the less we can relate to youths, naturally. You can still make a big impact in coordinating and helping our WoW engine run like the wind.

As a mentor or an event organiser, you’ll be volunteering with children or youths, which requires protective measures for both the attendees and the volunteers. It goes without saying, particularly if you’re an adult male, you’ll need to always take into consideration your interactions with youths. Walk’n On Water (WoW) only approves events with multiple event hosts, and therefore you should never be in a physical situation where you are isolated and venerable without witnesses. On the occasions where mentors are on one-on-one phone calls, it’s important not to give out your personal details and to always use the tools provided by WoW for interactions, such as our calling app that records all activity. All phone calls are kept s anonymous however are stored for your security.

The WoW movement doesn’t require you to be a qualified social worker but yes, your mentorship is a type of social work volunteering. You’ll enjoy the rewards, the social impact and the friends you make too.