IEC Volunteer Network

IEC has only a couple of paid staff for basic upkeep of the building. All other people from those appointed to the Board of Trustee, those elected by community members to serve as Executive Committee to those that help in the kitchen, serve food or run the programs are all volunteers.  By becoming a volunteer, you stay active in your own community, you will learn and teach and you make an impact. Allah has blessed the followers of Ahlul Bayt with talents beyond imagination.  Whether you are a doctor, teacher, writer, painter, engineer, student, office worker, taxi driver, or a housewife, you can make an impact in our society.

This page includes a list of suggestions for which you may want to consider volunteering. It ranges from creative graphical work to research, writing and editing on one hand and accepting responsibilities to help with the programs in other hand. It does not matter what gender you are or how old you are. Your community needs your help. But remember that although we would greatly acknowledge your help, your intentions should only be for the sake of closeness to Allah (Qurbatan el Allah). Below is a list of needs in different categories that specific help is needed for the IEC affairs.

1. Help with special committees or support programs: Examples of such help include volunteering for participation on special committees set up by Board of Trustee or Executive Committee in matters of interest to the community. For example, you may volunteer to help the membership and fund raising committee or serve in IEC Bylaw Committee or the Advisory Council to the Board of Trustee.
2. Help with special programs (in auditorium or prayer room): Examples include setting up the auditorium, chairs, decorations, posters, audio/visual equipment, taking pictures, translation, distributing food, and general help during a lecture program and cleaning the room after the program is finished.
3. Help with special programs (in the kitchen or parking lot): Examples include helping the chef with chores such as salad preparation, cleaning the kitchen before, during and after each event, washing the dishes, distributing food and collection of plates and clean up after the food is served. Sometimes events such as Eid ul Fitr and Ashura mourning have 1400-1500 guests that park their cars all around the building, sometimes blocking other cars. During such events, a core of volunteers guide the cars through parking lot, making sure that no car is blocked. You can volunteer for such help.
4. Help with Web pages: IEC Web pages are currently in design mode. It means that the general design of the Web pages are taking place without much attention to the details of the content. Even when content is provided in some pages, the source of the content is usually another Web site. A good example are the special pages for Muharram which is using the content from an Special Occasion page from IRNA. Although the design has been modified to adjust to IEC Web page designs, the content has seen almost no modification. Another example is the page for supplications where individual supplications are mostly copied from DUAS.ORG and again adjusted to our own design. Here are some items that volunteers can help. We will update the list as soon as new updates are incorporated into the Web pages.

   Browse through the Web pages and see the topics that are scheduled to have content.

   • Can you provide content for them?
   • Can you research the Web to find out addresses that could be used to as the basis of our developing pages?
   • Do you have (or have access) to the books, CDs, and tapes that are related to those topics?
   • What other sub-menu items you feel is necessary to include?
   • For our family pages we will have a section on food. Do you have authentic receipes from your country that you would like to share with the rest of coummunity?

   Browse through the Supplication pages under the Religious page and click on a larger supplication such as Abu Hamzaa Thumaly (do not worry about format, it will be fixed later.)

   • Compare the English translation with the text. Currently, the translation is broken at arbitrary places. Can you match them?
   • This supplication is generated from the pages at DUAS.ORG. However, it uses very inefficient method of generating the supplication by scanning several lines of the text into a very large image, often too slow with those without broadband. Can you help in rescanning the supplication into a PDF format?
   • Do you have a book that has this and/or other supplications is legible, yet smaller size that can be scanned?
   • Do you have the translation of the supplication in Farsi?
   • Can you compare the Arabic text with a major supplication page such as Mafatih and verify its authenticity?

   Be a reporter

   • If you regularly attend programs at IEC, send pictures and reports from those events. They will be used in the Web pages with or without your name based on your preference. You might also need to inform the program coordinator of your intention and obtain his/her approval ahead of time.

   Graphic design, audio and video processing, and Web page design

   • If you have talents in such areas, your help is greatly appreciated. In the near future, we will develop story books for children and young adults based on Islamic events. If you can paint pictures for such books, or do graphic design for them, we encourage you to volunteer.

More to come . . .