Good magazine in association with Intrepid Travel is delighted to introduce the Intrepid Volunteers Challenge. It’s a big idea and with your help it will make a big difference to New Zealand.
According to Statistics New Zealand nearly a million people volunteer for a charity or worthy cause every year. Volunteering is worth $3.31 billion to New Zealand, and the combined efforts of charities and volunteers contribute 4.9% to the country’s gross domestic product. This collaboration helps New Zealand to be a healthier, safer and more successful country. Volunteers donate 270 million unpaid hours each year, and this makes it possible for over 97,000 Kiwi charities and not-for-profit projects to survive.
To celebrate and support New Zealand’s volunteers, Good magazine and Intrepid Travel have created the Intrepid Volunteers Challenge and social networking site, so charities and volunteers like you can connect and bring change.
The big idea is simply to reward our unsung heroes and make it easier for new volunteers to find a project that suits them. In terms of average hours of voluntary work per week New Zealand is a global leader but we want to help make New Zealand the world’s leading nation of volunteers per capita. This will help save hundreds of eco-systems and improve thousands of lives.
To promote our volunteers and not-for-profit projects, each issue of Good magazine will have a page dedicated to members and projects on the network. We’ll also build up to a national awards ceremony celebrating the achievements of volunteers who get involved in the Intrepid Volunteers Challenge.
The Intrepid Volunteer of the Year will win a $5,000 Intrepid Travel volunteering holiday. So by trying to change the world you may end up seeing it too! Just upload your details, start networking and who knows where life will take you?
“You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things, to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals”
– Sir Edmund Hillary
