Volunteering

The Cooperative started with the force of its volunteers. Today we still consider the contribution that members, friends and citizens can make toward reaching our social goals to be very valuable.

We believe that in order to make the volunteering experience successful, as often as is possible, it is necessary to find an expert combination coming from the needs of both sides. To this end over time, we have perfected a procedure that we propose to the people who want to get involved with the cooperative: starting from the premise (sometimes not true, but more often than not, it is) that the people who wish to involve themselves in volunteering should have a general understanding of the cooperative’s activities. Therefore we propose a brief itinerary that includes 4 situations:

  1. Interview with a volunteer coordinator and the president of the cooperative;
  2. Participation two/three times (for a few hours each time) in the activities of the external laboratories and co-op’s headquarters;
  3. Participation two/three times (for a few hours each time) in the men’s prison laboratories
  4. Participation two/three times (for a few hours each time) in the women’s prison laboratories.

At the end of this “general” participation, each volunteer can decide where best to focus his/her contribution and then organize with the other people involved.

The range of activities that a volunteer’s contribution can take is quite wide. It spans from participating in the various labs, promoting and selling products in markets and in other situations, to contributing in a way that focuses on the competences and experience gleaned from one’s own work experience and other (ranging from administration to creative and commercial roles, for example).

The cooperative’s lab activities take place from Monday to Friday, while the markets and fairs usually happen on the weekend.

Some numbers:

  • today the cooperative includes 32 members, of which 8 are “able-bodied”, 14 are “disadvantaged” and 10 are volunteers.
  • Then there are the employees and volunteers who are not yet members because the membership relationship is issued at a certain point during the interactive itinerary and is not requested immediately.

If you are interested in getting involved firsthand and making your volunteer contribution to our activities’ functioning and management, contact our president Liri Longo.

Liri Longo: l.longo@riotera-ve.it
Cell.: 3484019868
Office: 0412960658

Thank you!