i-to-i volunteering

Rcuomo

hey, i was just wondering has anyone volunteered anywhere around the world with i-to-i?
im thinking of volunteering in argentina, in community development which would involve working in an orphanage teaching english to the kids and lots of other stuff...im also learning latin american spanish at the moment so this would give me a chance to become semi-fluent...
has anyone similar experiences of this type of work or anything with i-to-i?
i'd like to know what kind of company they, i.e reliable etc.

DadaKopf

I'm not sure that teaching Argentine orphans English is really going to help them as much as learning essential skills to get them jobs more than it'll help you to learn Spanish and embellish your CV.

I'm sure you want to do good, but you should consider this more carefully.

Visit www.volunteeringoptions.org and take a look. Contact Barry if you have any questions.

Rcuomo

well as i said you do alot of other things in the orphanage aswell, teaching english was the first thing that came to mind, and do you not think that being able to speak one of the most popular languages in the world will help them in their lives?
anyway i work in financial services sector and have so for a few years now so im not doing this to make my c.v look better, so thanks for the comments....

dory

Just remember i-to-i is a professional recruitment company. They're there to make money. They are not a charity, and they openly admit this. They even call their trips volunteering 'holidays'.
If you can get contacts your self, you colould save a lot of money. Lots of charities send people abroad, and they dont charge a couple of grand.

ljtracey

hey dory, i was just thinking about what you said. iv got a year out coming up and was looking at going abroad to latin america to volunteer. Like most others, the teaching english option seemed like the easiest and thats what i focused on but after reading what barry was saying on that site, im beginning to think its a cliche to go abroad and teach english. its a bit like how dare we go abroad and further impose our language on them and before anyone starts, i know that the world is doing a pretty good job of that already but why add to the problem i say, it doesnt make sense. surely, there is something else that we can take from our education system (and despite what anyone says, i still think the irish one is fantastic) and give to the children and adults of developing nations. i was looking at those "package" tours from USIT and gapyear.co.uk too, jesus they are expensive and very good at hiding additional costs on you. anyway, gone of the boil here, all that said, im left in a bit of a dilemma, myself, iv got a degree in spanish and IT and now iv to try and figure out how i can put those skills to work. if anyone has suggestions, id love to hear them....

the_syco

ljtracey wrote:

iv got a degree in spanish and IT and now iv to try and figure out how i can put those skills to work. if anyone has suggestions, id love to hear them....

Look for a country that has PC's, and is poor, and offer to fix their school's PC's. That, or offer your IT fixing skills to some charity, to see if they need someone to fix their PC's in some country where there is not really any tech support?

Ideo

there's a group called leargas that may be of interest to ye

ljtracey

hey, thanks guys. i am looking into leargas now. again thanx for your help.