Guide on How to Participate as a Volunteer in 40DFL INTERN.
How to Participate
1. Read the Peace Declaration. It’s important to know and accept the rules of this prayer campaign. Everyone who participates must agree to them. It’s a good idea to read the Frequently Asked Questions as well, to understand exactly what happens during the campaign.
REGISTRATION
2. Sign up with your details: we only need your first name and surname, an email address you have access to, and your mobile phone number. Fill in these details on the registration form. If there’s an option below that says "Select your campaign," choose the city where you’ll be participating. TICK THE BOX TO ACCEPT THE PEACE DECLARATION AND PRIVACY POLICY, even if you’ve already clicked or tapped the red "I understand and accept" button. Once you’ve filled everything in and the box is ticked, click SUBMIT. If your details are correct, they will be sent. Within a few seconds, a message will appear on the screen confirming that the submission has been successful and providing further instructions.
REMEMBER: YOU ONLY NEED TO REGISTER ONCE. To sign up for shifts/vigils, YOU DO NOT NEED TO REGISTER AGAIN.
If you didn’t participate in past campaigns but were already registered, please recover your account instead of registering again.
3. Wait for an SMS text message to arrive. Click on the link it contains. Your browser will open, and a message will confirm your validation. You’ll also see a button at the bottom of the browser to access your volunteer profile, where you can book your vigil shifts.
4. You’ll receive an email to confirm again that we’ve validated your email address. It will contain a link to your private area, where you can choose the days and times you’ll attend the prayer vigils.
NOTE: If there’s an issue with sending the SMS, the system will send an email instead.
BOOKING DAYS AND TIMES FOR VIGILS
5. Once you’ve entered your PRIVATE AREA:
NOTE ON ACCESSING YOUR PRIVATE PROFILE: Save the link we send you. If you don’t close that browser window on your mobile, or if you don’t use it to visit another website, your private area will always be available whenever you open the browser app, without needing to do anything else—no passwords or clicking the email link again. The only thing to remember is that you need to REFRESH the page to update the information it displays (refresh button). If you don’t refresh it, it might cause errors.
On many mobile phones, you can create a SHORTCUT—an icon directly on your home screen to access the link. (On iPhone, with the volunteer profile page open in a browser, click SHARE and select "Add to Home Screen.")
If you’re using a desktop computer and have closed the browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Explorer, Microsoft Edge, etc.), you’ll need to go to your email, find the one we sent you, and click the link. In these cases, it’s easier to create a BOOKMARK or FAVOURITE so you don’t have to search for the email.
If you’ve downloaded your vigils as calendar events, your personal link is also there, in each event/vigil in the notes section.
You can also copy and paste it into your mobile notes app.
Sometimes captains or coordinators might send it to you via WhatsApp.
Volunteer Options
In the MY VIGILS button on your profile, you’ll also see a MY OPTIONS button. Here, you can let us know if you’re willing to help fill empty vigil hours when needed.
When you select YES, the days of the week will appear with their vigil hours. Choose the ones you think you’ll have free if we contact you for a substitution or to fill an hour. You can pick different hours for each day of the week.
This is a different kind of commitment to the campaign—attending only when you’re most needed. You can change your options whenever you like. To avoid being contacted during a specific period, you can disable the option (switch to NO instead of YES) without deleting the days and hours you’ve already selected. Later, you can switch back to YES, and it will retain your previous settings.
THREE WAYS TO BOOK VIGILS
6. You’ll see 2 buttons: the first is for booking occasional vigils (one or two), where you can see the booking levels for each day and hour of the campaign. The second is for booking multiple vigils (more than two) at different times and days or many vigils at the same time, with the option to filter by day of the week.
In the first button, a calendar will expand with vigil hours in colours: red if no one is signed up for that hour, orange if one person is signed up, green if two are signed up, and blue from three onwards. Try to sign up for the red hours so we can cover the day with at least two people per hour.
7. If you’re participating sporadically for a day or two, or booking day by day, this first option is the most suitable. On each day of the calendar, you’ll see a button at the bottom that says "Sign me up for this day." Find the day you prefer and click it. A small window will open with available hours and real-time occupancy. Tap or click the hour(s) you prefer, ideally one with low occupancy (red background with no one, or orange with 1 person). Each time you tap or click an hour button, a message on the screen will confirm that the hour has been booked. Click or tap OK in the message window to close it. The booked hour will turn grey. To close the hours window, click or tap the black CLOSE button.
8. You’ll receive an email confirmation for each booking. It’s just for information—you don’t need to do anything else with it. YOUR HOUR(S) is/are booked, and you just need to show up punctually on that day and time at the abortion facility location specified in the campaign. If you can’t attend, cancel your shift as explained below in "Managing Your Shifts/Vigils."
9. With the second button, you can book multiple days and hours with a single confirmation email. See more below in "BOOKING VIGILS ON CONSECUTIVE DAYS."
10. The third button is for highly involved volunteers who attend one or more days a week at the same time. See more below in "BOOKING VIGILS ON CONSECUTIVE DAYS."
It’s important not to forward this email to anyone or share the link with anyone, as it acts like your password to access your prayer shifts/vigils. Thanks to this link, you can enter your private area, where there’s a MY VIGILS button.
MANAGING YOUR SHIFTS/VIGILS
When you arrive at the abortion facility for your vigil, ACCESS YOUR PRIVATE AREA, click or tap the MY VIGILS button to see the list of your prayer shifts/vigils with the date and time. For each shift/vigil, you’ll see three buttons: CANCEL, CHANGE, and START MY VIGIL, which are used for:
- Cancelling if something important comes up and you can’t go. We kindly ask you to cancel out of consideration for the campaign organisers and your fellow vigil participants, and so we can find a solution and cover your spot with another volunteer. Simply find the shift you want to cancel in the YOUR VIGILS list and click or tap the CANCEL button. Once cancelled, your hour will change colour on the calendar, and other volunteers will know it’s urgent to fill that slot.
NOTE: In some cities, the organising team sets a time limit for cancelling vigils, usually 24 hours, so in those cities, you won’t be able to cancel starting from the day before your vigil shift. Contact your day captain.
- Changing the day and/or time of the vigil. If you only want to change the shift’s day or time, you don’t need to cancel. Tap CHANGE and select the new hour and day. If it’s just a time change, tap the hour and then SAVE CHANGE. In this case, the vigil occupancy isn’t shown directly on the buttons, but it is when you tap the calendar icon in the top right corner of the window, as well as on the various calendars throughout the website—both in the private area and on the public campaign website.
NOTE: In some cities, the organising team sets a time limit for changing vigils, usually 24 hours, so in those cities, you won’t be able to change hours or days starting from the day before your vigil shift. Contact your day captain.
- Starting your vigil: When you arrive at the abortion facility, please access your private area. You’ll immediately see your shift highlighted. Tap START. This lets the campaign coordinators know you’re there, along with the people physically praying with you at the location. You can activate the vigil up to 15 minutes before the start time.
- Ending your vigil: The END MY VIGIL button will only be visible once you’ve tapped START MY VIGIL (you won’t see it before). When you’ve completed your prayer hour, you can go back to your YOUR VIGILS screen and indicate you’ve finished by tapping the END button on the relevant shift. HOWEVER, THIS FINAL STEP IS NOT NECESSARY, as if your vigil is ACTIVE, the system will automatically switch it to FINISHED at ten minutes past the next hour. If you didn’t activate it, it will show as MISSED since there’s no record of you being there.
- Importing vigils to your mobile calendar: Below the "Your Prayer Vigils" title on the YOUR VIGILS screen, you’ll find a link that says "Click here to import your vigils to your mobile calendar." By clicking or tapping this link, you’ll go to another screen, DOWNLOAD YOUR VIGILS, where you can download your vigils as calendar events. There are two buttons: one to download an .ICS file and another to email yourself the same file. For mobiles, the emailed file works better. When you receive the email, if you tap the attachment (the ICS file), your operating system will ask for permission to import the events into your calendar. If you accept, your vigils will be integrated into your calendar with reminders (one hour before). The event itself will also include your personal link (so don’t share or publish it).
NOTE 1: On MacOS, importing calendar events doesn’t work from Google’s Gmail app but does in the Mail app (native to iOS and MacOS).
NOTE 2: If you change or cancel your prayer shifts, these changes won’t automatically update in the calendar events you’ve already downloaded or received. You’ll need to manually delete those events from your mobile/computer calendar yourself.
BOOKING VIGILS ON CONSECUTIVE DAYS
8. If you’re a volunteer with more available time or want to participate more actively, check the screen for the second button, where you can quickly select the days and hours of your participation. The screen itself includes instructions on how to choose days and hours. When you tap a day, a window of hours will open, reflecting the number of volunteers signed up in colours (red 0, orange 1, green 2, blue more than 2). You’ll receive a single confirmation email with all the dates and times of your vigils.
9. If your level of participation is high and you want to pray for many days at the same time, you have the screen for the third button, where you can choose the same hour for a period of consecutive days, with the option to select specific days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.). When you tap to book, you’ll receive a single confirmation email with the vigils you’ve reserved.
10. You can use any of the three screens to book your vigils. We’ve created three options so you can choose the one that’s most convenient for you.
CHANGING CITY/CAMPAIGN
If in past campaigns you attended one campaign or city and now want to join a different campaign or city, you don’t need to register again but rather ADD a campaign (the system won’t let you register with the same email or phone number anyway).
To do this, go to your volunteer profile, and in MY VIGILS, next to the name of the campaign you’re currently signed up for, you’ll see a + sign in a box. Tap it, and a dropdown menu will appear to select a campaign. Choose your new campaign and click the SIGN ME UP button. That’s it! You’re now signed up for the other campaign, and where it previously only showed your original campaign/city name, there will now be a dropdown menu with the new campaign(s), so you can choose which one(s) you want to view or book shifts for.
In cities with multiple campaigns, if the organisers have decided so, new volunteers will be enrolled in all the city’s campaigns from the start of their registration, skipping this step. However, those coming from past campaigns will need to add the new campaigns in their city (if they wish).
CLARIFICATIONS
11. All confirmation emails contain your personal link. Whenever you want to cancel, start, or end a vigil, or sign up for more vigils, use this link by tapping it from your email program. It’s the same in every email you receive. So you don’t need to look for a specific email—any of the ones we’ve sent you will do. Keep in mind that if you don’t close the browser window on your mobile, your private area will remain accessible without needing to tap the email link again. If you get an error, refresh it. All browsers have a refresh button.
12. Day organisers (also called captains) may create WhatsApp groups and contact that day’s volunteers to give instructions, address any issues related to the vigil (attendance, punctuality, problems that arise, or anything else related).
Note: This website doesn’t work properly with old browsers like IE 9 and earlier. Use an updated browser.
Instructions for Volunteers Who Have Participated in Previous Campaigns
If you’ve already participated in previous campaigns, you can access your profile without issues, just as you left it from the last campaign. If you’ve lost your link, go to:
https://40daysforlifeinternational.com/recuperacion.php
Enter your email and tap or click the "Recover account" button. If you’re in the database, the system will send you a validation link or directly your private link to your email.
If it’s a validation link, wait for the email to arrive, open it, and tap or click the link.
If the validation works correctly, your profile will become available at that moment. The system will send you a second email reminding you of your volunteer profile link.
