Title: Trek Specialist
Type: Full Time/Exempt
Report to: Assistant Trek Director, U.S.
Location: HYBRID but based in the Bronx, NY
(Trek Specialists work from home but regularly visit Bronx high schools)
Schedule: Monday-Friday with Saturdays for Pre Trek activities and Trek
Travel: Up to 6 weeks annually
Salary: $21 - $25 per hour (Commensurate with Experience)
How You Will Make an Impact
Simply put…you will prepare groups of donors and high school students to go on a buildOn Trek. You will to co-lead a Trek to one of our partner countries (Nicaragua, Guatemala, Malawi, Senegal, or Nepal). This role is essential to the buildOn mission as Trek connects people in pursuit of increasing access to education. It is a powerful, immersive experience that is empowering to our donors, our U.S. high school students, and to our community partners.
The Program
buildOn’s Trek immerses U.S. high school students and donors in solidarity with communities in the developing world to build a school. A majority of our Trek participants are donors…they raise the funds to build a school. We also work with high school students in the Bronx, Boston, Bridgeport, Detroit, Chicago, and Oakland. Special care is taken to prepare them for Trek. After preparation, our groups (both donors and students) travel to their partner community for 1-2 weeks where they live with host families, immerse in the community, learn about the culture, and work alongside community members to build a school. Trek is not a poverty tour or voluntourism. Instead, it is an opportunity to invest in a community through education, work in solidarity to build a school, and learn about empathy, courage, passion for the possible, and resilience.
About You
The ideal candidate is an international service professional with experience living, traveling, or leading trips in the developing world and working with high school students. A history of service, youth development, donor stewardship, and strong organizational skills are crucial. The candidate must be highly organized, a creative problem-solver, possesses strong interpersonal skills, and is self-motivated. Trek Specialists are sincere, energetic, and fun!
Core Job Responsibilities
Prepare U.S. High School Students for Trek
- Work alongside U.S. Engagement Specialists who work in our partner high schools to recruit students for Trek. This includes doing recruitment presentations in the high schools, setting up info tables at lunch, and working with students and alumni to present on their Trek experience.
- Interview all students who have applied for Trek and notify them if they have been accepted or not.
- Lead Parent Information Night and Saturday Pre Trek sessions to prepare students for Trek
- Manage visa and passport processes and troubleshoot challenges
- Work closely with parents to ensure all paperwork is submitted and reviewed
- Provide additional support to Trek participants in their preparation for travel
- Co-lead 1 or 2 buildOn U.S. Treks to a partner country (Nicaragua, Guatemala, Malawi, Senegal, or Nepal). buildOn U.S. Treks are approximately two weeks.
- Support the students after Trek with a post Trek workshop and help them schedule presentations to inspire other students to apply for Trek.
Prepare Donors for Trek
- Lead information sessions and Pre Trek session (most typically on Zoom)
- Review Trek Enrollment forms and paperwork for any potential legal or medical concerns and follow-up as necessary
- Manage visa and passport processes and troubleshoot challenges for volunteers
- Communicate the methodology of buildOn Global programs to Trek participants while being sensitive to the unique needs of each Trek participant
- Cultivate and maintain relationships with buildOn donors
- Provide additional support to Trek participants in their preparation for travel.
What You Bring
- Earnest and sincere commitment to buildOn’s Mission and Core Values.
- Requires a 4-year degree & a minimum of 2 years' related experience.
- Experience living and working in the developing world (preferred 1 year).
- Experience working with high school youth (preference for working with youth in a buildOn partner region)
- Extensive experience leading service projects or as a volunteer.
- Demonstrated ability to provide high-level support to donors.
- Strong interpersonal skills with the capacity for building relationships with all types of stakeholders, from corporate CEOs, to college students, to Bronx high school youth.
- Demonstrated leadership and organizational ability to balance and coordinate multiple projects, people, and assignments simultaneously.
- Track record of taking initiative and requiring minimal supervision while completing complex assignments.
- Proven record of maintaining timely and detailed records and reports.
- Highly results-oriented & independent work style.
- Ability to handle cross-cultural communication sensitively, and to communicate clearly, effectively and persuasively both verbally and written.
What We Offer
At buildOn we value our staff members. Without a talented team we cannot engage youth in service. Our benefits include…
- A generous time-off policy of 39 days annually
- 2 paid shutdown weeks (10 days)
- 2 weeks of paid vacation (10 days)
- Paid sick days (5)
- Paid personal days (7)
- Paid holidays including Juneteenth (7)
- 100% insurance premium paid for medical, dental & vision with subsidized deductibles.
- 403(b) retirement plan with an employer match
- An opportunity to go on Trek to a buildOn partner country where you will work in solidarity with community members to build a school
- $50 cell phone reimbursement
#LM
What We Do
At home or abroad, buildOn’s goal is to break the cycle of poverty, illiteracy and low expectations through service and education. In the U.S., buildOn empowers urban youth to transform their neighborhoods through intensive community service and to change the world by building schools in some of the economically poorest countries on the planet. Internationally, buildOn is breaking ground on a new school every two days in Burkina Faso, Haiti, Nicaragua, Nepal, Senegal, Malawi, and Mali. Our students have contributed over 2 million hours of service in the U.S., and have helped build more than 1300 schools around the world. For more information, visit buildon.org.