The Enterprise Corporation has an active employee volunteer program which permits employees to volunteer during traditional work hours. Five regional Enterprise managers attended the session, along with volunteer coordinators from the Joy of Sports Foundation and Northern Virginia Family Services. The Enterprise managers will forward training information from the CIDI to all of their employees, who will be encouraged to participate in local volunteer efforts.

The CIDI is particularly sensitive to the desires of thousands of Americans who wish to volunteer for international relief activities, yet are unable to due to lack of international humanitarian assistance, expertise, the lengthy time commitments required for international assignments, the lack of viable volunteer opportunities, and other reasons. The CIDI volunteer program offers individuals an opportunity to volunteer locally for programs directly related to successful international disaster relief efforts.

The CIDI utilizes volunteer customer care personnel in the aftermath of major international emergencies. Customer care volunteers must attend a minimum two-hour training session to learn about appropriate donations management for international emergencies, as well as briefings on specific disaster-related activities before they are qualified for service. The Center has called upon customer care volunteers for assistance in handling public inquiries for large-scale emergencies such as the Rwandan Crisis, Hurricane Mitch, the Kosovo Crisis and others.

One of the main objectives of the CIDI program is to educate the public and corporations about appropriate in-kind donations in order to reduce the level on inappropriate, and sometimes harmful, donations of materials for international emergencies. The purpose of the training programs is two-fold. The first is to acquire a roster of several hundred, trained and interested local customer care representatives to volunteer with the Center when needed. The second purpose is to educate an already interested target group who will go back into their communities, workplaces and places of worship to share what they have learned about appropriate disaster assistance, thereby reducing the number of problematic collections of inappropriate materials for international relief.

The CIDI is pleased to add a local volunteerism component to its existing international corporate program. The Center’s Private Sector program operates in support of international disaster preparedness, mitigation and prevention around the world. Since 1991, the Center has been active in encouraging multinational corporations in disaster-prone countries to become engaged with local partners to implement appropriate preparedness measures before a disaster occurs. These activities are undertaken to ensure the safety of the corporation’s employees and their families, the local communities and host countries; to reduce the impact of these disasters and to return their companies, as well as the affected country, back to normal operation as quickly as possible.