Rio 2016 opens innovative volunteer training centre and starts selection process
Facility offers a ‘sensory tour’ about the history of the Games and space for group role-play activities
The first Rio 2016 volunteer training centre is in the same neighbourhood as the Olympic Park (Rio 2016/Mariana Castelo)
Volunteers at the Rio 2016 Games will pass through a selection and training process different to anything that has gone before. The first training centre, which opened on Wednesday (25 March), features a ‘sensory tour’ through which candidates will walk, being told about the history of the Games by the voices of the Olympic gods, as props create sensations of goose bumps and heat, replicating those felt by athletes on their big day.
“We want our candidates to learn new things, to have the opportunity to have a unique experience and to be able to share with other people the experience of having worked on the world’s largest sports event,” said Flávia Fontes, Rio 2016’s head of volunteers. “The goal of the centre is to train volunteers so that they perform focused and efficient work.”
Electromagnetic generators create goosebumps as volunteers are 'immersed' in Games history (Photo: Estácio de Sá/Ana Colla)
The first training centre is in Barra da Tijuca, the west Rio neighbourhood where the Olympic Park is being built, and a second is scheduled to open in the city centre on Saturday (28 March). São Paulo and Belo Horizonte will also have permanent training centres, while temporary ones will be set up during a road show that will pass by 14 other Brazilian cities. Non-Brazilian applicants will be interviewed via the internet.
A fundamental part of the selection process, the training centres will host interviews, group discussions and role-play activities, all with the aim of selecting and preparing 70,000 volunteers – from 242,000 applicants – to help stage the first Olympic and Paralympic Games in South America.
Candidates participate in group role-play activities as part of the selection process (Photo: Rio 2016/Mariana Castelo)
All four permanent training centres will be on campuses of Estácio University, an official supporter of the Rio 2016 Games. “We have the challenge of constructing 1,800 different courses to train thousands of volunteers,” said Marcos Noll, Estácio’s Further Education Director. “This is a complex project, with a national scope and international visibility, in which more than 200 of our professors are involved.”
Applications to be a Rio 2016 volunteer are now closed, but it is still possible to join the waiting list.
