O-en Network Volunteers

Did you live in Japan before? Did you learn Japanese or are you studying Japanese right now? If you are looking for more opportunities to keep practicing your Japanese, if you want to make friends who speak Japanese, come join us!

O-en Network is a non-profit organization and always looking for volunteers who can help us run our summer camp and other special events.

It's been so great to see that our voluteer counselors have established friendships during our summer camp and events. They frequently go out together outside of O-en Network events. Yes, they become real friends, not simply volunteer peers who work together only O-en Network time. It is one of our aims to help those individuals meet others who have same interests and/or experience.
We also create some special occasions for volunteers to gather. We go to an amusement park, bowling, Karaoke, dinner to just have fun.

What you need is the strong motivation, willingness to challenge yourself, and positive attitude. You will be a model for our campers and event participants. We would love to have volunteers who are non-native Japanese so that non-native campers will feel comfortable that they are not alone. It is also a great experience for our non-native participants to see that someone older than them is also working hard learning and practicing Japanese.

All native Japanese speakers will be speaking Japanese to you. You have to be strong emotionally and have to committ that you are going to practice your Japanese as best as you can. Please know that all other staff are willing to support you.

You will receive the certificate with your volunteer hours shown (the maximum is 40 hours per session, based on Montgomery County SSL policy). You will also receive the evaluation and feedback of your volunteer work.

Requirements:

At least 14 years old (we may accept 12 and 13 years old as Jr. counselor depending on the program content and child's personality. PLEASE contact if you are under 14 but interested in volunteering opportunity)
12 years old must be 7th grade (6th graders cannot participate as a counselor).
Some Japanese skills/knowledge
Strong motivation and committment

Summer Camp Volunteers:
You are going to work as a counselor during summer camp. It depends on how many campers and volunteers we will have, but usually at least two or more counselors work together to take care of a small group of children. You are going to make sure that all the children from your group are safe, participating the activities, and you provide any kind of support your children would need. You will be asked to lead at least one activity. You are going to play, play, PLAY! with children while you communicate with children in Japanese as much as you can.
You are also going to help set-up, and clean-up the campsite before and after hour.
You are going to write up reports on each child. You are also going to communicate with parents, to briefly let them know how the day went.
Other specific tasks and responsibilities will be given with guidelines before the camp session starts.
It is strongly encouraged to participate the entire session. It is important for children to have consistancy. However, if you have another important committment and cannot come everyday, it is okay. It is better to have you even a few days than not at all.
You are also required to attend the volunteer staff orientation.
Starting from this year, we are going to offer the First Aid and CPR certificate workshops to all volunteers.

If you are interested in volunteering for Summer Camp,

please click here.

Special Event Volunteers:
You will be assigned to take care of a few children/event participants to make sure that they all are safe and participating the activity. You are asked to engage them, to entertain them, and to make them feel that they are all in the part of our community/event. Specific tasks and responsibilities will be given before the event. It can be to lead singing in the bus on our fieldtrip, can be to organize a game, to support participants make connections with other participants etc.

Ski Trip 2010 volunteers - here