Volunteer / Intern Opportunities

Would you like to be involved in a project that could:

▪ Make history soon in health care and public health
▪ Have a dramatic impact in the political arena
▪ Bring you into contact with caring, action-oriented people
▪ Advance your professional or volunteer career
▪ Take you on an adventure!

If so, I hope you'll consider doing volunteer work for Voice Roundtables - - or working with us in an unpaid internship, which we could design to suit your needs.

This is a rare opportunity, because this innovative entrepreneurial project is at a turning point.  It's been a quiet project developing slowly for a number of years.  But it's about to break into a much bigger arena.

Here are important recent milestones:

▪ Last summer (2004) Voice Roundtables were mentioned by the major media for the first time (CNN, the Washington Post, CBS television).

▪ The first version of a professional-quality Voice Roundtable application (that is, system) was up and running for the first time in January (2005).

▪ After a year's wait, the VRT patent application was published by the U.S. Patent Office on Feb. 17, 2005.

▪ Professionals at Inova Fairfax Hospital (named one of the nation's best hospitals by U.S. News & World Report) have recently committed themselves to conducting pilot projects with Voice Roundtables (in the area of smoking cessation).

▪ Howard Dean, whom I recently met in person, has expressed interest in learning more about VRTs and how they can be put to use for progressive causes.

You can get involved as a volunteer / intern whether you are:

▪ A liberal-arts person
▪ A technical or computer-oriented person
▪ A business person
▪ Young, retired, or anywhere in between
▪ Local to DC, or living anywhere else in the world

You will be able to choose your hours (work as little or as much as you like), and you can work:

▪ Via email or the Internet
▪ Over the phone
▪ In person (at an event, at my home office, etc.)

The work you are involved in might be one or more of the following areas - - it's your choice:

▪ Conducting Voice Roundtable discussions
▪ Writing or rewriting VRT instruction manuals
▪ Doing library, Internet, or telephone research
▪ Helping to organize meetings
▪ Helping organize a database (important contacts)
▪ Working in public relations/media outreach
▪ Other areas

Groups you could conduct through Voice Roundtables (as pilots):

▪ Support groups of any kind
▪ Political discussion groups
▪ Discussion groups on business or business leadership
▪ Discussions on sports, music, the arts ... almost any topic
▪ Book discussion groups

For example, you could decide you'd like to organize support groups in the area of:

▪ Weight loss     ▪ HIV prevention          ▪ Alzheimer's
▪ Diabetes          ▪ Cancer          ▪ Heart disease
▪ Hospice          ▪ Addictions treatment          ▪ Sports Medicine

Here are some of the people I know or have connections with, whom I will be inviting to participate in this project at some level:

  ▪ A musician who tours and records with the Rolling Stones and was formerly a member of the Allman Brothers

  ▪ The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of a book on the Civil Rights movement

  ▪ A former U.S. Senator

  ▪ One of the nation's leading economic forecasters

  ▪ An 80-year-old blues musician from the deep South

This project may also have a special focus on assisting organizations involved in:

▪ The Civil Rights movement
▪ The homosexual rights moment
▪ The women's movement

No matter what your skills or time constraints, we could probably use your help.  If you are interested in finding out more, please contact me.  Thank you!

John Craig, MSW
Fairfax, VA (outside Washington, DC)
john.craig@aya.yale.edu
571-432-0305