10 ways to volunteer online directly from home

Who said you can't help people in front of the computer?

Having to stay at home doesn't necessarily mean you stop caring about your causes. In fact, there are plenty of opportunities to get involved online while waiting to volunteer again in the real world.

Most of the offers are in English, but don't let that scare you! This is the perfect opportunity to practice your English skills.

1. The Smithsonian is the largest museum complex in the world. Among other things, its collection consists of numerous texts and documents. To make the artworks accessible and safeguard them, the museum has for several years now launched an online transcription service, through which volunteers from all over the world can transcribe documents from images.

2. We all know Wikpedia, but how many of us have ever taken the time to contribute to the world's most famous encyclopedia? If you enjoy doing research, checking information, and writing articles, you can use your free time by participating in the Wikimedia community. In addition to the English page, there is also a French page.

3. 7 cups is a very useful service, especially during this quarantine period. The site and also the application allows you to get in touch with people trained to listen, and to express their fears, concerns and thoughts. It is possible for everyone to volunteer as a listener and benefit from free online training.

4.  The be my eyes application wants to allow people with sight problems to be as independent as possible. Volunteers who sign up make themselves available to answer video calls from blind people and help them with timely questions such as colours of clothes, position of kitchen utensils or more. Here is the explanation in German: bemyeyes.com/language/german

5. The United Nations also has its own online volunteer program. In this case, you need to have specific knowledge in certain areas, such as IT, translations or graphics if you want to participate.

6. Do Something is a platform dedicated to young people with a lot of causes to work on: from creating 5-minute-long playlists to limit shower time and waste less water to reporting ivory objects on ad sites.

7. If you speak an uncommon language other than English, you can contribute to Translators without borders and help non-profit organizations around the world with their projects.

8. Have you ever thought that you can help humanitarian projects directly from your sofa? Thanks to the Humanitarian Open Street Map Team you can participate in numerous humanitarian mapping projects. On the website tasks.hotosm.org you can find numerous projects to which you can contribute

9. Project Implicit is a project of Harvard University that wants to study thoughts and feelings within the unconscious. How can you help? On the site there are several tests in which you can participate and transmit the data to the researchers. The tests can be carried out in various languages like English, French or German.

10. Zooniverse is a large database of scientific research to which you can contribute: counting penguins in remote areas to help understand their lives is one example.