Become an online mentor with www.horsesmouth.co.uk

A new social networking site is offering virtual volunteering opportunities for anyone aged 16 or over. By becoming an online mentor with www.horsesmouth.co.uk, you can support and advise others from the comfort of your own home.

If you’ve lived, you’ve learned. The skills and knowledge you have gained from your experiences could be really useful to people facing the same choices and challenges; people who might otherwise never meet and who would never be lucky enough to meet you. As an online mentor, you can help others in an anonymous, confidential and secure environment.

To sign up, visit www.horsesmouth.co.uk and fill in a survey about your experiences. You can pick your own mentoring topics and chose exactly how much or little time you want to volunteer each week. When you have completed these hours, the search engine will remove you from results so that your profile is not seen by other members.

The site operates an e-Bay-like reputation system, called the M-factor. This allows you to be rated on your friendliness as well as the usefulness and speed of your response.

Martha, 23, says virtual volunteering is perfect for her: “Volunteering with horsesmouth allows me to be in touch with a wide range of people and is totally flexible, so I can volunteer as much or as little time as I want, and whenever I want. It's made me realise just how valuable my own life experiences are, and it also gives me a chance to pick the brains of people who may be able to help me!”

Find out more at www.horsesmouth.co.uk.

Opportunity Type
All

Skills and qualifications
Providing you are 16 years old or over and have access to a UK mobile phone (for registration purposes), anyone with life experiences, achievements or lessons learned, can be a horsesmouth mentor, and anyone with a life could be a horsesmouth member.

Times
To suit you.

Start and end date
From: 24.05.2007   To: 31.12.2007