I had the pleasure of interviewing Micaela about the outreach program in which she’s participated. I gained a lot of insight about the volunteer program, her job tasks, and the overall experience she’s had so far. She provided great advice for any future volunteers who may be interested in similar opportunities in the future.

The outreach consists of creating content for social media. Micaela designs templates for Instagram and other social media sites. She makes content that can be recreated. From this experience, she’s learned that designing content for social media is hard. One of the challenges is anticipating what stakeholders are going to like and she expressed that she often has to worry about that.

When asked how she liked the program so far and how she felt about it, Micaela stated that she enjoys the outreach/volunteer experience. She said it’s exciting but difficult at times. It’s her first time doing a job and there’s pressure as a student. It’s been challenging but interesting to her. She finds challenges in comparison with her culture and schedule. She’s learned a lot from this opportunity.

This experience has made her realize that she enjoys designing templates and overcoming difficulties with her team. The volunteers participating in this outreach are young people. Her co-workers live in different parts of the world. She knows of another volunteer who lives in Santa Cruz (in Bolivia) while she lives in Cochamaba (also in Bolivia). She and her team have learned to collaborate with each other despite their differing living situations.

Micaela revealed she becomes tired at times with having to schedule volunteering around her university education. She didn’t know what she was getting into at first. She does appreciates that this opportunity is related to her career. She believes this experience will help in her career aspirations and future endeavors. She’s gained an understanding in the importance of social media and having pages with content that encourages others to donate. She learned the importance of reaching the youth through social media and other digital mediums. She conveyed how she enjoys social communication.

I asked Micaela what her advice for future volunteers would be. She suggests others not to take this opportunity idly. She discourages engaging in this program for self-gain such as to obtain scholarships. Instead, she advises other volunteers to compromise and to be willing to learn. She encourages others to be respectful to their team and the organization. She also advocates for transparency. Future volunteers who want to join should understand what they want and what they’re good at. They should make it known what their skills are and where they may lack. She believes that communication with their team and the organization is essential.

When asked about the pros of this program, Micaela expressed that she likes that this experience is related to her career. She also finds it interesting learning what people from different parts of the world and other cultures like. She enjoys researching and analyzing the different ways in which to reach people based on their culture. She learned the multiple ways to reach different types of audiences and the type of content each culture may find more engaging. She’s done lots of research to understand these different interests.

As for the cons, she noted that, for some of the volunteers, this experience and their assignments were unrelated to their careers. She stated that this outreach may be difficult for individuals who aren’t into social studies. Engineers and doctors, for instance, may not see the value in these opportunities. There also wasn’t any specific times for meetings, but she acknowledged that it’s difficult to come up with a consistent schedule due to the time differences. She contemplated that perhaps there could be designated times in which co-workers could text each other for better communication. Maybe also a better understanding of what the organization wants. At the beginning there wasn’t much communication, but later the communication got better.

Towards the end of the interview, I asked Micaela if she had any final words or suggestions she wanted to add. She suggests creating space for the organization. Perhaps a virtual space to get to know other volunteers. She’s only spoken with fellow volunteers once. She believes it would be interesting to see others and know who’s in the organization. She also voiced how she and others fear what people from other cultures may think or say about them. In that sense, perhaps seeing other volunteers would alleviate some of those worries.