Volunteer with ACCESS

Our Volunteer network is a bold, innovative, and creative community that supports the power of Californians to make informed and empowered decisions about their sexual and reproductive health.

Community members can join us as radical changemakers by volunteering to provide logistical support, advocate for expansive policies and resources for Californians, and gain hands-on movement-building experience through our paid internships.

An Activist Volunteer is someone seeking to act on civic engagement for and on behalf of- abortion, reproductive justice, gender-affirming care, parental (see also environmental, carceral, financial, emotional) justice policy initiatives:

  • This can include engaging in relational organizing, such as through phone and text banking, attending marches and rallies, and providing testimony at the state/municipal level.
    • An Activist Volunteer is someone seeking to advocate for abortion access, funding, LGBTQIA, and gender-affirming rights at community spaces. This person can act as an advocate for the organization to spread awareness.
  • This can include creating after-care kits for clinic partners to share with their patients, or attending concerts, health fairs, conferences, and other community events as a representative of ACCESS RJ.

A Practical Support Volunteer is someone seeking to support Healthline callers in getting back and forth to their appointments, assisting with funding for hygiene and other supply needs, offering a listening ear, and being a witness to an abortion procedure.

  • This can include providing transportation, doula/emotional support, and funding directly to Healthline callers.
  • This role is not open to all applicants, and we encourage you to trust us as we navigate recruitment that closely matches our callers’ needs.

An ACCESS RJ Intern is a temporary, paid position for people seeking to expand their skillset to embark on a career within the public health and reproductive justice fields. We have a thorough selection process and quite often many more interested applicants than available internship positions. Please be patient when submitting your application for this role.

Volunteer Application
ACCESS RJ Internship Application

FAQ

Practical Support Volunteers (PSV) provide logistical assistance for people seeking abortion and other reproductive healthcare. PSV support can look like providing transportation, assisting with clinic escorting, and supporting callers financially to support lodging, childcare, gas, meal assistance, and other out-of-pocket expenses.

While we appreciate the overwhelming and caring offering for home lodging, we have been advised by our legal team to no longer offer home lodging to abortion-care seekers by way of community members. We have integrated a new model of lodging support that meets the current moment to support callers in a more effective way.

All volunteer scheduling is as-needed and on-going basis. This means that we may contact you for volunteer needs within as little as 3-days-notice and as much as one month notice — it all depends! We are a mutual-aid organization working to meet the cultural, historical and critical health needs of the current moment we are in, which requires us to be nimble and flexible. We extend that same grace to our volunteer network and people seeking to be folded into our ARJ work culture.

Respond back to the invitation that you are not able to make it, and then await another invite! The good news is, unless you let us know that you would like to be removed from our Training Invitation list, we will assume that your application is your sign-up to be tapped for the ongoing trainings.