At the International Youth Federation, volunteering is understood as a form of professional contribution — not informal assistance.

Volunteer assignments are skills-based, scoped, and accountable. Individuals are matched to roles according to expertise and experience, entrusted with defined responsibilities, and expected to contribute tangible outputs that feed directly into institutional work. Each assignment is time-bound, supervised, and embedded within existing teams and workflows.

This approach reflects a simple principle: meaningful impact requires clarity. Volunteers are not placed at the margins of activity, nor treated as observers. They work alongside staff on real priorities — from coordination and research to communications, policy support, and systems development — within a professional, international environment.

Professional volunteering at IYF is designed to serve both sides of the equation. The organization benefits from focused expertise and delivery capacity. Volunteers gain credible experience grounded in responsibility, collaboration, and exposure to how international institutions operate in practice. By treating volunteering as a structured form of contribution, IYF ensures that service is purposeful, expectations are mutual, and learning is inseparable from delivery.

Professional volunteering is reflected not only in how work is structured, but in how responsibility is entrusted and developed over time. The following stories offer a closer look at how individuals across different contexts have grown into roles of increasing responsibility within IYF.

  • María Isabel José (Mexico) — From systems design to institutional leadership
  • Jasmine Sharif (Saudi Arabia) — Learning responsibility from the inside
  • [Name] (Kenya) — From first assignment to real responsibility