Community Recovery Volunteers are a network of people ready to help their communities in times of need. A community recovery volunteer is ready to support their community by being available to volunteer in roles where there is an urgent need.

A community recovery volunteer typically requires no specialist skills and is only called upon when there is an urgent need – for example due to a shortage of volunteers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, or during the many long months of community recovery following a disaster or other crisis. Community recovery volunteer roles are perfect for people who would naturally feel the urge to help following an emergency.

By registering as a community recovery volunteer, weVolunteer can harness peoples’ goodwill so in the recovery and rebuilding that follows an emergency, you can help your community in a way that is both coordinated and effective.

Community recovery volunteers play a vital role following an emergency or when there is an urgent local need for volunteers. We are working with the Victorian Government to support the COVID-19 response in the best way possible.

As a community recovery volunteer, you might be asked to help distribute food and supplies to those who cannot access it, support local communities to stay connected or assist with practical tasks.

Anyone aged 18 or over and living in Victoria can become a community recovery volunteer through weVolunteer. You should be physically and mentally fit enough to carry out tasks following an emergency.

weVolunteer is a project designed to:

• strengthen the supply of skilled and available volunteers to support community recovery in Victoria
• support volunteer involving organisations to access a pool of credentialed volunteers that are motivated to assist in community recovery across all regions of Victoria
• strengthen place-based volunteering which is best placed to respond rapidly and appropriately to future urgent need

weVolunteer is run by peak body Volunteering Victoria, partnering with award-winning technology company MyPass for the weVolunteer portal, tapping into the local knowledge of Volunteer Support Organisations for place-based responses, and providing guidance on quality and safety of volunteering experiences, expertise on keeping volunteers engaged, and training and workshops for volunteer involving organisations.

The weVolunteer project team is available to provide personalised support and the weVolunteer online portal provides a community recovery volunteer pool and a Volunteer Passport where people seeking volunteer roles during times of need or following an emergency in Victoria can register their skills and credentials. Once a volunteer registers on weVolunteer, they can create a profile using MyPass technology and Volunteering Victoria will recommend suitable roles to volunteers as they become available.

MyPass is an Australian-owned digital credentialing system, enabling volunteers to own and control their personal and professional information in one, central location. By creating a free Volunteer Passport, volunteers can have their qualifications verified and then share that information with any organisation they choose. This means no longer having to upload and share the same documents or information multiple times for multiple organisations.

Organisations whose volunteers choose to share their information will then get real-time access to their verified data, including expiry dates & compliance percentages.

MyPass is ISO27001 Certified for Information Security and currently supports workers and organisations across Volunteering, Health & Aged Care, Energy and Utilities. Learn more here.

It is important to have volunteers ready to go once an opportunity arises during a crisis. MyPass is a credentialing system that enables us to gather your information that can be relevant for a role when it becomes available. MyPass helps you set up your volunteer profile and add details that can help us match you with roles.

There is none. If volunteers don’t wish to apply for any of the opportunities that are shared with them or organisations are not ready to source volunteer applicants for a role, they have the control of simply registering until they are ready to engage. If you do wish to apply to become a community recovery volunteer, then the commitment will be outlined in that specific role application that you will be matched with.

When registering for a MyPass Profile, the final step involves reading and agreeing to their Terms & Conditions / Privacy Statement. This section addresses the following:

• Principle 1 – Collection & Principle 2 – Use and disclosure from the Victorian Privacy and Data Protection act 2014
• Principle 3 – Openness is covered in our Privacy Collection Statement on our website

As MyPass is an Australian Registered Company (MyPass Australia Pty Ltd ABN 72 620 029 147, it is bound by all Federal and State based regulations regarding privacy and information protection.

MyPass is hosted by Amazon Web Services and data is stored in AWS Sydney, not overseas. MyPass underwent the process of becoming ISO27001 Certified in Information Security, one of the highest levels of information security recognition that can be attained in Australia with under 200 companies holding this accreditation.

More information:

• MyPass Privacy Collection Statement
• MyPass Privacy Policy
• MyPass Terms of Use

The primary purpose of the weVolunteer project is to connect willing Victorians with volunteer organisations who are trying to support the community during these times.

For the Covid-19 response, we’re working closely with local authorities, Government and other organisations to find out where your help is needed.

As you share your information with us, simultaneously organisations are also applying to have specific roles advertised. These roles may vary from making well-being check phone calls, household maintenance, delivering supplies, essential transportation and a range of other services.

Once we have roles prepared, we will share the application links with the pool of volunteers, so you can decide if you want to apply to these roles or not.

Becoming an emergency volunteer is quick and easy. Register your interest on the weVolunteer website.

Once you’ve signed up, we will send you email updates on our progress with our coronavirus (COVID-19) response and information on how to keep your MyPass profile updated so that when your skills are needed, you are ready to go!

You will be contacted once a role becomes available in your local area (or otherwise, depending on restrictions at the time). There’s a huge amount of coordination required to mobilise community recovery volunteers, so don’t worry if you haven’t heard from us. We are doing all we can to update volunteers on the needs in their local areas and ensure we deploy our volunteers safely, adhering to Government guidelines.

The COVID-19 crisis is something like we have never seen before and we recognise it’s taken some time to put in place a system that will allow volunteers to access roles more easily. Ensuring we are providing safe volunteer roles that adhere to Government guidelines and helping those who need us the most is of utmost importance.

It is the volunteering involving organisation’s responsibility to comply with Government regulation around creating a COVID-safe environment for volunteers. Please refer to our guide for more information.