Beijing, China: I was chosen to be one of the team leaders for the volunteers in cycling events for "Good Luck Beijing". The organizers gave us a series of training courses on how to lead a team and how to be a good leader in order to complete the work well. The training courses were really hard. We had to get up at six in the morning and begin our training class. After all, there is so much we need to learn that we should get familiar with the job as soon as possible.  Read article

China has decreed that it will not rain on the main stadium during the Beijing Olympics next year. This iron-clad assurance comes from Zhang Qiang, the head of Beijing's Weather Manipulation Office, who says "we will provide a guarantee" the stadium will not be rained on through the use of anti-aircraft guns to seed silver iodide sticks into clouds that dare drift towards the arena, thus causing any rain to fall well short.

The two big issues are combating pollution and creating an open-minded, user-friendly army of 100,000 volunteers capable of meeting the demands of a half-million foreigners in a stranger world than some may have imagined.  Read article

Beijing, China: The United Nations and China agreed to promote a training project on strengthening volunteerism through the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games yesterday. the 1.4 million US dollars initiative is designed to enhance the capacity of Olympic volunteers and demonstrate volunteerism as an effective tool to achieve China's development.  Read article

Beijing, China: Beijing municipal officials on Monday announced a target of 400,000 city volunteers to staff urban areas outside the Olympic venues. Volunteers roughly equal the number of foreign visitors expected for the Olympics, with estimates ranging from 500,000 to 800,000.  Read article

Beijing, China: Most of the Olympic Games volunteers are university students. While they are keen to help out during the international event, they are also concerned about finding a paying job and choose the latter instead. Recent survey shows that majority of the interviewees are worried about employment. They are not only busy with their schoolwork, but also with job-hunting and becoming Olympic volunteers at the same time.  Read article

Cronulla, Australia: The most quintessential Australian pastime -- swimming at the beach -- has prevented many Muslim men and women to get totally integrated into Australian culture because of their traditional clothing. Through a new volunteer programme, and a novel swimming outfit, Australian Muslims are encouraged to "get out there and be part of Australia" by becoming volunteer lifeguards.   Read article

Claude Marshall has been a full-time volunteer consultant at UNHCR for the past 14 years, helping tens of thousands of refugees around the world. Much of his work since then has focused on raising public awareness and private sector support for sport and education programmes for refugee children. Marshall is preparing to hand over to a full-time successor, thus ensuring that the programmes he started will continue to benefit refugee children. He sat down with UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond to discuss his volunteer work and the future of the programme he began.   Read article

Kampala, Uganda: When many people think of aid to Africa, they imagine sacks of grain for the starving or blankets for the homeless. But in Uganda, one volunteer-involving charity is offering something different: swimming lessons.  Read article

Beijing, China: More than 320,000 people have volunteered to work at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The large number means many Olympic fans will be disappointed, since Beijing organizers will need only 70,000 volunteers for the Summer Games with 30,000 more for the Paralympics.  Read article

Nairobi, Kenya: A 14km run through slums in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, marked the end of the World Social Forum (WSF) on Thursday, after five days of meetings and demonstrations attended by about 46,000 delegates from all over the world.  Read article