and their projects in a full-time capacity. These
coordinators refine associated management practices
and provide a dedicated role for taking care of volunteers’
needs and any associated issues and problems that arise
during their service. Rather than rely on personnel or
volunteers at our overseas missions or staff at Taiwanese
embassies to enhance the effectiveness of our volunteer
services, we now have dedicated personnel to do these
tasks.
In the past year we dispatched Volunteer Service
Coordinators to work in St. Lucia and Panama. By
being stationed in our partner countries over the long
term and gaining knowledge of local conditions, these
personnel should be able to act as a communications
bridge, exploring and planning how to meet the needs of
overseas missions and the role that volunteer projects
can play in meeting such needs. In terms of management,
the coordinators’ familiarity with the TaiwanICDF’s internal
resources coupled with their proximity to volunteers
should enable us to process and resolve problems over
much shorter periods of time.
Promoting a Reserve Volunteer System, Establishing
A Pool of Human Resources
To improve the quality of the volunteers we dispatch
and refine the development of our volunteer service, we
have continued to promote a reserve volunteer system
and sought to establish a pool of readily available human
resources.
In 2012, we organized six first-phase training
sessions for the benefit of 171 participants and 11
second-phase training sessions for the benefit of 228
participants. In the future these volunteers will become a
vital new force in the service. We are gradually migrating
the operations of the service to ensure that all deployment
of volunteers is eventually sourced from a qualified pool
of reserve volunteers.
A University-educated Majority
The majority of the 2012 intake of reserve volunteer
trainees was under 30 years old (77%), followed by
volunteers aged 30-39 (18%). Four female volunteers
were recruited for every male. In terms of education, most
entrants were university graduates (86%) with a smaller
portion holding postgraduate degrees (14%). Specialties
in general education were the most highly represented
interest among participants (22%), followed by business
and finance (17%) and public health and medicine (13%).
In 2012, we dispatched 32 long-term volunteers (for
one- or two-year periods) and one short-term volunteer
(for six months) to 13 partner countries: São Tomé and
Príncipe, The Gambia, Honduras, Panama, El Salvador,
Nicaragua, Belize, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St.
Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Thailand, the Marshall Islands
and Tuvalu. Female volunteers outnumbered males four
to one. Most volunteers dispatched were between 20
and 29 years old and the majority specialized in general
education, followed by public health and medicine, and
then business and finance.
31
22% General Education
17% Business and Finance
14% Social Sciences
13% Public Health, Medicine and Nursing
7% Computing and ICT
6% Industry
5% Natural Sciences
5% Journalism and Communication
4% Tourism
4% Agriculture
3% Culture and the Arts
70% Trade and Economics
9% Finance, Trade and Business
9% Public Health, Medicine and Nursing
9% Other
3% Computing and ICT
Figure 8 TaiwanICDF Overseas Volunteers
Service: Reserve Volunteers (2012)
Figure 9 TaiwanICDF Overseas Volunteers by
Category (2012)
