Water and sanitation volunteer roles

Obuyisi bw'Omu Initiative

We empower Ugandan communities with mental health, WASH, education, and climate resilience initiatives.

Operations Manager

● Oversee day-to-day remote operations of programs and teams
● Develop and implement operational systems and workflows
● Coordinate between departments (programs, finance, communications)
● Track project progress and ensure timely delivery
● Support strategic planning and organizational growth
● Develop policies and standard operating procedures (SOPs)
● Assist in volunteer coordination and onboarding systems
Monitor performance and recommend improvements

Minimum Hours per Week:

10+ hours per week

Duration:

6+ months

Obuyisi bw'Omu Initiative

We empower Ugandan communities with mental health, WASH, education, and climate resilience initiatives.

Fundraising Specialist

Fundraising Strategy Development:
· Collaborate with the team to understand our core programs, budget needs, and funding gaps.
· Research and help develop a comprehensive fundraising plan that identifies the most promising income streams (grants, corporate sponsorships, individual donations, online campaigns).
Grant Research & Writing:
· Proactively research and identify grant opportunities from foundations, trusts, and bilateral/multilateral agencies whose priorities align with our mission in mental health, WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene), climate action, and girls' education in Uganda.
· Draft compelling grant proposals, letters of inquiry, and concept notes, working with the team to gather necessary data and impact stories.
· Help manage a grants calendar to track deadlines and reporting requirements. 
Individual Giving & Crowdfunding:
· Support the development and launch of online crowdfunding campaigns.
· Help brainstorm and implement creative ways to engage and grow a base of individual monthly donors.
· Assist in drafting compelling fundraising appeals (e.g., for email newsletters, social media) in collaboration with the Communications and Digital Marketing volunteers. 
Partnership Development:
· Research and help build a pipeline of potential corporate partners, foundations, and philanthropic networks.
· Assist in drafting sponsorship packages and partnership proposals that offer clear value to potential supporters.
Donor Communication & Stewardship:
· Help create materials to thank and update donors on the impact of their contributions (e.g., impact reports, thank-you emails).
· Support efforts to create and maintain strong, long-term relationships with funders

Minimum Hours per Week:

10+ hours per week

Duration:

6+ months

African Development Choices (ADC) is a UK-registered charity on a mission to reduce poverty by empowering communities to make more informed choices in the management of public resources.

ADC’s purpose is to enable communities to independently meet their needs for essential services, such as clean water and safe sanitation, and improve lives in Africa.

At ADC we encourage a working culture of seeking and giving input, showing and taking initiative, and commitment to the organisation and its purpose.

We now have an exciting opportunity for a volunteer Senior AI Agent Architect to join ADC and help build a live prototype of MajiGuard AI.

Main purpose of job:

To lead the technical design and hands-on development of MajiGuard AI, an agentic AI prototype that helps ADC identify underused WASH resources, structure recovery and reallocation cases, and verify that recovered value reaches facility upgrades and operations and maintenance.

Division: Technology / AI Innovation

Department: Product & Engineering

Position reports to: Head of AI Innovation

Direct reports for the position: Volunteer AI engineers, developers and technical contributors

Main Duties & Responsibilities:

• Lead the end-to-end architecture of MajiGuard AI, including the selection and integration of models, agent workflows, orchestration tools, retrieval systems, data structures and human-in-the-loop controls appropriate for a live prototype.

• Translate ADC’s operational goals into practical AI workflows, especially for identifying underused WASH resources, standardising evidence and case preparation, supporting recovery and reallocation decisions, and verifying delivery of value to facility improvements and ongoing operations and maintenance.

• Build and iterate a live prototype using pragmatic, cost-effective tooling, with strong attention to reliability, traceability, security, maintainability and ease of future scaling.

• Design structured inputs, prompts, evaluation criteria and decision logic so that outputs are useful to non-technical ADC teams working across programmes, research, partnerships and leadership.

• Establish a technical roadmap for the prototype, including architecture choices, milestone planning, testing priorities, deployment options and documentation for future funders, partners and developers.

• Work closely with ADC leadership to shape the product vision and ensure the prototype aligns with ADC’s wider governance and public service innovation model.

• Advise on suitable approaches for data governance, privacy, model risk, hallucination control, auditability and responsible AI use in the context of public-resource management and service delivery.

• Define and monitor prototype success metrics, including usefulness, accuracy, turnaround time, workflow fit, and operational learning that can strengthen grant applications, partnerships and future product development.

• Support the transition from local experimentation to a live prototype environment, including basic cloud or hosted deployment thinking, version control practices and engineering handover readiness.

• Mentor and coordinate other volunteer technical contributors where relevant, helping ADC build a small but high-quality AI capability around MajiGuard AI.

Knowledge, skills, and experience:

Essential

• 8+ years of relevant experience in AI, machine learning, applied NLP, intelligent automation, agentic systems, or modern software engineering for production-grade data or AI products

• Strong hands-on experience designing and building AI systems, including LLM-based applications, retrieval-augmented generation, agent workflows, orchestration frameworks, evaluation pipelines and API integrations

• Experience taking ideas from concept or prototype stage into a usable live product, pilot or production-like environment

• Excellent technical judgement on model selection, system design trade-offs, latency, reliability, observability and cost-conscious engineering

• Strong programming ability, ideally including Python and modern backend tooling, with the ability to work across architecture, implementation and troubleshooting

• Experience designing structured workflows where AI outputs must be reviewable, auditable and useful for operational decision-making
• Ability to simplify complex technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders and translate mission goals into practical product choices
• Interest in using AI to strengthen public service delivery, accountability, governance, resource allocation, or adjacent social impact problems
• Ability to actively take initiative and help set things up in a start-up environment
• Ability to actively seek and give input in a collaborative team environment
• A committed team player with good communication skills
• Available to volunteer at least 8-12 hours a week

Desirable

• Experience with agentic AI products involving workflow automation, task routing, multi-step reasoning, document intelligence or evidence-based case management
• Experience with cloud deployment, containerisation, CI/CD, databases, vector stores, authentication and production monitoring for AI systems
• Experience working on civic tech, govtech, development, WASH, infrastructure, audit, compliance or public-finance-related products
• Experience working in an early-stage start-up or mission-driven organisation and comfortable operating with ambiguity
• Experience mentoring engineers or leading small technical teams across different locations and time zones

What ADC Offers You

This is a volunteer, remote and unpaid position with the following benefits:

• A chance to play a foundational role in shaping MajiGuard AI from concept into a live prototype with real strategic relevance to ADC’s mission
• An opportunity to apply advanced AI and product-building skills to a meaningful public-interest challenge connected to WASH, accountability and service delivery in Africa
• An opportunity to work with a diverse global team and contribute to an organisation seeking systemic social change
• Professional learning, leadership and portfolio-building opportunities through high-ownership work
• Work reference provided

This job description is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

Here at African Development Choices, we celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our teams are made up of people from all over the world and we welcome all applications. If you are disabled or have a long-term health condition, and you require any reasonable adjustments for your application with us, please let us know by contacting recruitment(at)africandevelopmentchoices(dot)org.

Do you want to make a real difference?

At Oxfam, we're not just selling pre-loved items and unique finds – we're working together to build a radically better world. With your help, we will turn pre-loved treasures into resources that empower communities worldwide.

Here's why Oxfam is the perfect opportunity for you:

Be a Second-hand Superhero: In our high street shops, Ecommerce Hubs and Online Shop, people like you help create exciting and inspiring collections – retail therapy with a purpose!

Increase Your Skills: If you have a particular interest, you can build on it to gain valuable retail experience to add to your CV, such as merchandising, customer service, and teamwork.

Find Your Community: Meet like-minded people who share your passion for a fairer world.

Flexibility: We know life gets busy. That's why we offer flexible volunteering options. A few hours a week is all it takes to make a big difference.

Oxfam isn't just another charity shop. We're a movement of passionate individuals working to create a fairer world, and we’d love you to be a part of it!

As a Climate Ambassador, you would be joining thousands of volunteers supporting the Department for Education’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy, launched in 2022.

Climate Ambassadors offer free support to nurseries, schools and colleges across England to develop and implement a climate action plan. This framework helps education settings evaluate and address key action areas – adaptation and mitigation, biodiversity, climate education and green careers, and decarbonisation.

If you have: 

• A desire to create coordinated impact in your local community, while utilising your employer’s volunteering leave (where applicable); 

• Knowledge about the sustainability and climate challenges facing the world; 

• Familiarity with education settings, or the ability to inspire senior leaders, educators and young people to set out on their sustainability journey; 

• A growth and mentorship mindset to help education communities begin or progress with their climate action plan, 

… then join the growing community of Climate Ambassadors and embed climate action where it matters most! 

You will receive training, guidance and regular communications from our regional teams to make the most of the climate action opportunities on your doorstep. You can get started by volunteering just 2 hours a year. 

How can you become a Climate Ambassador? 

1. Complete an initial interest form and your regional team will be in touch to support your registration on the STEM Learning platform; 
2. Receive induction, your DBS check and your Climate Ambassador training; 
3. Identify activities you would like to support and post about them on the STEM Learning platform, or browse activities requested by your local schools! 

Your regional team will get in touch suggesting a good match to a local setting seeking support relating to your area of interest or experience. You can also upskill through the Sustainability Leadership Programme to unlock new areas of expertise. 

Please note: STEM Learning UK host Climate Ambassador profiles on their website, which requires you to register as a STEM Ambassador. Your profile will be processed as a Climate Ambassador upon selecting ‘Climate’ as your area of interest during registration.