Kazan 2015 volunteer programme: Facts and figures

23,937 applications were submitted by candidates from 70 countries of the world during the recruitment campaign that kicked off on September 20, 2014 and lasted for 100 days. The launch of the online application form on the official Kazan 2015 website was preceded by an awareness-raising campaign that managed to reach over 70,000 young people across the country via its project titled ‘Learn Everything About the FINA World Championships!’.

From November 2014 to March 2015, the Organising Committee had been putting together the future Kazan 2015 team that after a strict selection process included 516 best volunteers of 20 partner regions of the Executive Directorate for Sports Projects, 94 residents of the municipal districts of the Republic of Tatarstan, 1,558 residents of Kazan and 14 foreign citizens.

Five major criteria were used for selecting volunteers for the upcoming sporting event – motivation, ability to work in a team, stress resistance, social skills and foreign language proficiency.

Plus, volunteer experience and involvement in other major sporting events were seen as an asset but not the key selection criterion, allowing a large amount of newbies – one third of the total quantity of volunteers – make their debut as volunteers at the 2015 FINA World Championships in Kazan.

The competition was really tough: depending on the region of Russia, there were 10-30 applicants per position.

During the Championships, volunteers worked in 200 different positions across 24 functional areas of the Organising Committee:

• generalist volunteers (60%),
• sports volunteers (9%),
• specialist volunteers (24%),
• city volunteers (7%).

The male to female ratio in the volunteer team was 1:3 while volunteers' average age was 18-19 years old. The maturest volunteers celebrated their 76th and 77th birthdays in 2015, while the youngest members of the volunteer team were only 14 years old (their participation in the World Championships was envisioned by special programmes and agreements with educational establishments and sports schools of Kazan).

The longest distances covered by volunteers on the way to Kazan were 8,308.4 kilometres and 9,133 kilometres.

The most sought-after volunteer positions during the Championships were Event Services Volunteer, Team Attaché, Volunteer Entertainer and Field of Play Volunteer. The rarest positions were Volunteer Journalist, Volunteer Stage Supervisor, FINA Office Volunteer Assistant Administrator

Apart from English, the most popular foreign languages spoken by volunteers are German, French, Spanish; among the rare ones are Polish, Portuguese, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Italian; the rarest ones are Urdu, Farsi and Pashto.

During the Championships, the OC provided volunteers with the following benefits:

• accreditation certificate (for international volunteers);
• uniforms featuring two polo shirts, cargo pants, a hoodie, a baseball cap and sneakers;
• meals during shifts and at places of accommodation (for non-local and international volunteers);
• travel card covering 54 rides around Kazan, transportation to places of accommodation at night, as well as airport transfers for non-local and international volunteers;
• accommodation for non-local and international volunteers;
• mobile network expenses;
• Championships-time motivation, recognition and reward programme;
• cultural programme and opportunity to attend competitions as spectators.

The number of hours worked by volunteers is one of the most measurable and credible indicators of volunteers’ contribution to a successful staging of the World Aquatics Championships. At the end of the sporting event, a special record was made in each volunteer’s passport featuring the number of hours worked at the FINA Worlds 2015 and information about the venues they were assigned to. Each volunteer worked 95-100 hours in average, which is equal to 2 working weeks.

All in all, during the FINA World Championships and FINA World Masters Championships, volunteers contributed 212,273 hours, which is equivalent to a single person’s 24 years of 24/7 work or 72 years of 8 hour-per-day work. 

Press Office of Organising Committee for 16th FINA World Championships