Hands-on opportunities exist in Haiti right now — and the need for volunteers is expected to grow in the weeks and months to come.

US website Tonic.com has compiled a list of organizations that need volunteers in Haiti. If you have skills that you believe could be useful in rebuilding Port-au-Prince, these organizations may want to hear from you. Click here to also view World Volunteer Web's resources pages.

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Volunteers, this is your moment.  Celebrate International Volunteer Day 2009!

IVD offers an opportunity for volunteer organizations and individual volunteers to concretely show their contributions to peace and development. Over the years, rallies, parades, community volunteering projects, environmental awareness, free medical care and advocacy campaigns have all featured prominently on IVD.

Recognizing the crucial role volunteers' play in addressing environmental issues, the United Nations Volunteers programme is urging everyone to adopt "Volunteering for our Planet" as a theme for this year's IVD. Together with UNEP's 'Seal the Deal', the campaign aims to gather the number of volunteering hours and report this at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (7-18 December) in Copenhagen.

Visit Volunteering for our Planet. Register your volunteer work and commit your number of volunteering hours.

Remember, every action makes a difference. Every hour counts.

Download promotional tools for IVD and Volunteering for our Planet.

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Brussels, Belgium: The year 2011 will be the European Year of Volunteering. From 17 August until 18 September you can send a proposal for a logo and/or a slogan. There will be a shortlist of 20 from which the winner will be chosen, and the winning design will be used throughout the EU during the EYV 2011. The finalists of the competition will be invited to Brussels on 16 December 2009 where the winner will be announced. See the Let's Slogo page for more.  Visit site

The United Nations is leading a powerful new campaign to encourage governments to seal the deal on a fair, balanced and effective climate agreement - and volunteers can make a difference.

The Seal the Deal! campaign is mobilizing civil society along with political leaders and the business sector on an ambitious, global scale to raise a strong call for urgent and united action on climate change.  Read article

During Global Youth Service Day, millions of youth around the world organize community service projects to address the needs of their local communities through service, to be recognized for their contributions, and to be a part of a global youth service movement.

Over the past 21 years, Global Youth Service Day has brought together more than 40 million people in thousands of communities worldwide. It is held during a weekend every April in over 100 countries in every region of the world.

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Washington, D.C., USA: Hundreds of thousands of volunteers turned across the US to help their communities today, in response to President Barack Obama's call for a day of public service in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.

Click here for the website, USAservice.org.

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Today, United Nations Day and World Development Information Day, CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) and the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme are pleased to launch a joint publication, Volunteering and Social Activism: Pathways for participation in human development. The paper is based on a study undertaken by the three organisations in 2007-2008.  

The background study finds that both volunteering and social activism are important strategies for fostering people’s participation in social change and human development.

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More than 67 million people are expected to mobilize today under the slogan 'Stand Up Take Action' at events around the globe to demand that world leaders do not use the financial crisis as an excuse for breaking the promises they made in 2000 to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.  Read article

The ServiceNation Movement launched with a national Day of Action on 27 September 2008. Citizen organizers rallied their communities at hundreds of events across America, calling on their friends, families, and neighbours to advocate for a new culture of volunteerism in the US.  Visit site

Louisiana, USA: As the US Gulf Coast braces itself for the onslaught of Hurricane Gustav, this time thousands of volunteers are swinging into action to offer their support to evacuees. The American Red Cross is playing a major part, having prepositioned supplies into the region to shelter 500,000 people for six days. Some 3,000 disaster response volunteers and staff are already in place.  Visit site