Who we are – Becoming a Volunteer

Interested in joining our team? We are a group of journalists, analysts, editors, proofreaders, web designers, and media junkies who embrace progressive causes. Although our content focuses foremostly on Venezuelan news and analysis, our team hails from all corners of the globe publishing wide ranging articles on various topics. We understand the relevance of information from diverse nations, voices and sources, as well as the need for international context regarding Venezuela, from the perspective of Chavistas, meaning socialist-minded, anti-imperialist and Patria Grande driven people.

We also benefit from the help of a solidarity driven group of volunteers from all over the world, and we are always looking for more socialist-minded people to help us proofread, translate, prepare, and format pieces, manage our social media content, develop our site’s SEO strategy, and conduct on-the-ground reports in Venezuela and Latin America.

Feel free to reach out to us using our contact form if you are interested in becoming part of our team; we will always try to honor your needs and time constraints.

What we expect and need from volunteers?
• We have step-by-step guides and tutorial videos for our new team members, therefore prior experience in WordPress, translation or proofread is not required, but is considered a plus.
• For proofreading (or even translation), Spanish proficiency is not mandatory, but is considered a plus.
• For proofreading, a high level of English is not mandatory, but is considered an important plus.
• For style assistant (SA) work, the main tasks include republishing English language pieces from other sources. It is important for our style assistants to be detail-oriented and thorough.
•We prefer every volunteer to be responsible for 2 shifts, but we will make exceptions if necessary.
• We have a robust multicultural team, whose time zones range from -7 GMT to +5:30 GMT.
• Our publishing times are very flexible, so we can adjust to your time constraints and schedule. We always try to comply with the two-shifts rule, and we are mindful of time zone constraints.
• All volunteers will have a 30-day probationary period before they are approved as part of our team.
•All volunteers should be driven by quality and excellence, capable of working in multicultural environments, detail-oriented, and disciplined in adopting our workflow, style and voice.
• Proofreading, translating or drafting a piece requires an average of 20-25 minutes.

How do we organize our work?
• We organize our work into time slots that we call “shifts.”
• We publish three original/translated pieces and two English language (republished) pieces around noon (Caracas time) from Tuesday to Saturday.
• On Sundays and Mondays, during the noon shift, we publish only one translated/original piece.
• We publish two original/translation pieces and two English language (republishing) pieces around night (Caracas time) from Tuesday to Saturday.
• We normally publish two original/translated pieces and two English language pieces during the night shift everyday.
• On a regular noon shift style assistant (republishing English language pieces), translation, and proofreading work requires a maximum of 75 minutes per shift; except on Sundays and Mondays when we only publish one piece, only 25 minutes are required on those days.
• On a regular night shift for style assistant work (republishing English language pieces), translationing or proofreading work, 50 minutes are needed at most.

We hope this information helps to not only clarify who we are and how we work, but also make it easier for prospective volunteers to contact us.

Another important element that motivates our volunteers is the sense of belonging and fulfillment that comes with working for a cause we believe in. Through this work, our volunteers and our entire team develop a stronger sense of self, a more comprehensive knowledge of the world, and access to a resourceful, creative community of like-minded people.

Along with all this we offer our volunteers our platform in order to expand their writing, creative skills as far as they want to go, without restrictions beyond our own editorial line. At the same time we feel proud of becoming a learning center for any socialist minded people wanting to acquire knowledge on how to launch a communication endeavor, in this area we are proud to offer guides and video tutorials for our volunteers in order to manage all the facets of a complex media operation like the one performed by Orinoco Tribune.

We are currently in the process of building a social media team that helps us fight the algorithm and improve our reach. We are looking for, at least, seven social media driven activists capable of dedicating at least 60-90 minutes a week to this project, building social media schedules, campaigns and innovative ways that allow us to exponentially increase the reach of our message.

Updated on Dec 11, 2022
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