Volunteering Abroad

mel123

Ive always thought about volunteering abroad but on looking up the net im finding it very hard to actually get any info, can anyone point me in the right direction? Has anyone every done this?

bacon?

i think there's info on the usit site.

The Real B-man

mel123 wrote:

Ive always thought about volunteering abroad but on looking up the net im finding it very hard to actually get any info, can anyone point me in the right direction? Has anyone every done this?

What type of Volunteering are you interested in? e.g Humanitarian


Few useful links:

http://www.volunteerabroad.ie

or

http://www.volunteeringireland.com/page.php?id=19

mel123

YEAH SORRY, humanitarian type volunteering, thanks for the sites

The Real B-man

mel123 wrote:

YEAH SORRY, humanitarian type volunteering, thanks for the sites

Your welcome.

Sawa

I volunteered last summer with a charity called Habitat for Humanity and I went with a group to Honduras and we built houses for low income families. Amazing experience when I was 17! Definetly recommend it!

mel123

Sawa wrote:

I volunteered last summer with a charity called Habitat for Humanity and I went with a group to Honduras and we built houses for low income families. Amazing experience when I was 17! Definetly recommend it!

Did u go on ur own? Id be going on my own if i go, sounds a bit daunting but im sure everyone in the group would be in the same boat??

The Real B-man

You travel in a group my friend went to zambia and they had a team building day before they went to get to know eachother your all in the same boat most people its there first time going.

Kooli

If you want to volunteer abroad, then this site is the ONLY site you'll need:

www.volunteeringoptions.org

It's an Irish website, you can search volunteering opportunities by different criteria such as region, type of work, length of time etc. and all the volunteer organisations are included (including those mentioned above).

There's also loads of resources there to read through to help you make your decision and to learn about other people's experiences.

Enjoy, it'll be the best time of your life!

DadaKopf

Thanks, Kooli! Was just about to post that one. Nicest folks every are those Volunteering Options folks.

star gazer

This link along with the other explanations linked on the left of the page should help in deciding on where and what to do.
www.volunteeringoptions.org As Kooli says it is a comprehensive one stop shop on volunteering abroad.

ctimes

hi

Try VSO - www.vso.ie
They are an organisation that look after volunteering abroad. am thinking of it myself

star gazer

http://www.irishtownship.com
Building houses in South Africa.

star gazer

http://www.vsoireland.org/
International development charity that works through volunteers.

edanto

If you're interested in living for a few months in India or Kenya and helping out at a school next summer, have a look at www.suas.ie

Running Bing

Came to this board to ask that exact question:)

Some of those sites are great, exactly what I am looking for (I would be especially interested in the habitat for humanity one.)


Only problem is the costs. Do people usually just pay the cost out of their own pockets or do they raise the funds through donations?

Seeing as I would be going in the summer would it be difficult to raise those sums of money(around 2 and a half grand:eek:). Id love to do it but I definately couldnt afford it out of my own pocket.

Dr.Louis

Try www.vsiireland.org

They're great! And also non profit! A lot of of the major volunteer agencies are actually profit run, so when you just have to fundraise over a thousand euro (sometimes even three thousand) its actually for their own profit. With VSI you just pay a registration fee of about €100 and then you pay your flights.

If you want to go to Africa/Asia I think it could be a bit more than €100. But still- it beats a couple of thousand!

I spent last summer volunteering on a farm in Europe, such a great experience!

star gazer

Irish Aid have a new volunteering centre in O'Connell street, Dublin. They can help with volunteering options.
They have an information evening on the 7th of feb details.

sternn

Im a 1st year student and looking to volunteer in peru hopefully during the summer for a month or 2. Would the best way to do it be to go through a charity/organisation? I was thinking of trying to get in direct contact with an organisation over there (an orphanage for instance) which would mean i wouldnt have to pay for those fees required by the charities. Any help ?!

star gazer

This thread goes into the not for profit/profit factor and something on peru also.

sternn

cool, thanks. great info on that thread, never even thought of looking at it.

walshb

star gazer wrote: »

http://www.irishtownship.com
Building houses in South Africa.

Does anyone know how damn powerful and resourceful SA actually is and how ridiculous it sounds that they are somehow waiting on the Irish to sort out their housing problem?
It's only causing trouble in these countries....


I can think of many areas and people in Dublin alone who could benefit from this extreme 'generosity'.....

CamillaRhodes

walshb, yes, there is poverty the world over, including in Dublin. There are hardships, traumas, injustices. No one individual can be expected to attempt to deal with all these injustices. Some choose one over another, e.g. some people became nurses or doctors to help the sick; some people become drugs counsellors to help the addicted; some go to volunteer to build houses for the poor. Some people prefer to do this at home, other people prefer to do this abroad. Some prefer to work in English speaking countries, others prefer to go to extreme depths of cultural difference.

Please don't p*ss on people's dreams to try to do a bit of good in the world, wherever it might be.

If you believe that there are issues in the South African administration (which there undoubtedly are), you can join an advocacy group, you can lobby our minister for foreign affairs, you can suggest other volunteer projects in south africa which might help to improve the socio-economic system for the destitutedly poor (for make no mistake, while SA might be to some extents powerful and resourceful, this does NOT trickle through to all sectors of society, much as the neoliberals might have you believe).

It really annoys me seeing people criticise somebody else's attempt to do a bit of good in the world, without offering any more constructive alternatives.

NOT all NGO work causes problems in beneficiary countries, NOT all fundraising goes to prop up corrupt regimes.

If you, walshb, feel inspired to go volunteer with the poor of Dublin, I take my hat off to you - really, Dublin needs more people thinking your way. But please don't sh*t on others for wanting to do something else.

edanto

well said.

Also, if anyone's interested in the inside story on why South Africa is still so full of poor people even after apartheid, Shock Doctrine is well worth a read.

Oilrig

All very quiet here...

Walshb, ya picked the wrong thread...

Q for Camilla,

NGO's building houses for these people... are they letting the Gov off the hook? thus perpetuating the Africa Syndrome?

CamillaRhodes

Oilrig, I'm not sure here is the right place to get into this discussion - politics board might be more appropriate.

Oilrig wrote: »

NGO's building houses for these people... are they letting the Gov off the hook?

Briefly, as those on the volunteering board are likely to end up volunteering with NGOs... i.e. non-governmental organisations: NGOs are intended to be supplementary / complementary to governmental activities. In my opinion, there is a space for NGO work, combined with advocacy and lobbying of governments to improve standards of governmental activity.

But as I say, I don't think here is necessarily the appropriate place to discuss this [nonetheless interesting] topic. If you wanted to start a thread on the politics board regarding this, maybe you could post a link here for interested parties? Otherwise I think this starts to muddle the volunteering topic.

naroc

I travelled to Moldova last year with an Irish charity called OutReach Moldova. They send out groups of volunteers from May to September each year to an orphanage for girls with disabilities. The trips last for two weeks. They are seeking volunteers for this season.They will be holding an information meeting for volunteers going this year in TCD on Sat 8th March at 11. I intend going back again in September. Their website for anybody interested is www.outreachmoldova.org.

Tusky

Does anyone know of any good organizations that do this kind of thing ? Has anyone done it ? If so, would you recommend it ?

The type of thing Im talking about is when you pay a grand or so and then go and work for a charity abroad in Africa or somewhere else for a couple months. All help much appreciated.

AlmightyCushion

Moved from After Hours.

Tusky

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Moved from After Hours.

Arg. Was looking for a volunteering forum but couldnt find it, cheers.

Creature

I was thinking about this myself recently. Try http://www.i-to-i.com/, that's the only site I've found so far.

Tusky

Creature wrote: »

I was thinking about this myself recently. Try http://www.i-to-i.com/, that's the only site I've found so far.

Coaching football definitely appeals to me. They have placements in Trinidad, Kenya & Argentina. Interesting.

Creature

I was looking at the conservation work with animals in Africa myself, but then teaching in Japan is something I've had my eye on for ages also.

flanum

if ur non too bothered about the charity end of it, i worked/volunteered on a kibbutz in israel for a while, best craic ever. try the kibbutz association. or: http://www.perfect-links.com/sites/asia/guide_to_being_a_kibbutz_volunteer_in_israel.php



bloody hell, just googled and came up with this: http://www.volunteeringireland.com/page.php?id=19

cool!

KBarry

I did the kibbutz thing too. Best 6 months of my life. My liver hurt after mind

star gazer

two threads merged. some of the discussion above should be useful to the recent op.

CamillaRhodes

To Tusky and Creature,
Guys please will you take a look at this thread before deciding to give your money to i-to-i? I have pretty strong feelings about them. If you're just looking for a fun experience and don't mind paying money to a company to give you that fun experience, that's fine, but if you really want to volunteer with a charity, please look into the alternatives I (and other posters) suggest!!!

edanto

Seconded on the i-to-i criticism. The reason you will come across them first when you start looking for volunteer work is because i-to-i is a normal forprofit company and hence has a full marketing budget - press ads, search engine optimisation, adwords, banner ads.

The organisations on volunteeringoptions.org are all bona fide nonprofit, endorsed by Comhlamh (an Irish organisation set up by people returning home after doing development work overseas).

Seven years ago, I spent a summer with Volu - they do mainly building camps all throughout Ghana - three weeks long. Essentially they're ecotourism, as well as the building a school etc that you are doing, you're bringing some money to remote part of the economy. A friend of mine went to Ghana with Volu 3 years ago and they were just as good as when I was there. (Having said that, you won't find Volu on the Comhlamh site, since they only list Irish orgs)

People on the Volu camps are given the warmest Ghanaian welcome you could imagine - and certainly viewed very differently to the people that have come on the spoon fed, expensive, Raleigh International trips.

In a nutshell - be wary of glitzy websites and companies with big marketing budgets and trust the recommendations of people like Comhlamh via volunteeringoptions.org - all the sending organisations on that site are up to scratch in terms of safety.

dory

Yea, I was about to jump all over the i-to-i thing too but I see two people have beaten me to it.
This will be my fourth summer volunteering abroad. 1st two were in India, then Peru, and now I'm heading back to India. I went with an organisation in my college the first year, and worked for contacts I'd made from that year after that.
There are loads of great organisations looking for people so please don't give your money to some company!

spinandscribble

the amount of money it takes to pay a company like i to i is so silly when you could give that money directly to the place you find work. cut out the middle man.
i'm going to thailand this summer and now i have the horrible task of saying no to one charity over another. i applied to both assuming they both wouldnt be as keen but i guess the combo of having the right work experience and that fact i've raised 3k by fundraising is appealing.
how do you choose? and then tell the other no when they're already been very nice to you? i know which one i'd prefer. ones in a isolated village and i'd be the only volunteer most likely at that time. i would only work between 6-9. the other is much more demanding, but to be honest, i'd prefer to be kept on my feet.

Sawa

My experience with Habitat For Humanity: June/July 2005

I was part of a youth group so the leaders organized the trip, there was 16 of us altogether who went. We had to fundraise the money ourselves, however we did it all together doing car washes, bag packing, sponsored mini marathon, asking individual people to sponsor a "brick" or a "door". We also applied for a few grants and got money from the church that the youth group was affiliated with. It was hard to raise the money but definetly worth it. We also had to pay some ourselves, for flights and so forth. Also, take into account the price of vaccinations (depending on where you go) as this cost a fair bit.

We all knew each other so it was easy enough but you can join an open team or create one yourselves, it seems there is a few people here who are looking to do something like this, so why not make a team up yourselves? If you are short people, put up ads or ask friends. Its something everyone should do and honestly was the best trip of my entire life so far, so you shouldn't find it hard to get people. Then you contact Habitat For Humanity (this is the only one I know how it works, so sorry if I'm being exclusive). Their website is very informative, theres the Irish one and the international one:
http://www.habitat.org/eca/
http://www.habitatireland.ie/
Habitat Ireland have building projects in Ireland aswell as across the globe.

It was an amazing experience and I was very lucky as I didn't have to do any of the planning only fundraising (which took up a lot of time). We even got the weekends off building, to go explore the country (I went to Honduras) and saw some unforgetable sights. The building itself was extremely hard work, in really hot sun and we only ate 3 basic meals a day so it was hard but totally worth it. The families help with the building and were so friendly, always giving us drinks of water and at the end we had a party with a pinyata
It sounds so clichéd but it really did help me to appreciate what i have, after seeing kids with no shoes who lived in houses made from corrogated steel and fabric among other materials.

Here is a report I did on the trip for my school newsletter when we had returned
(names etc have been deleted):

"Mi casa su casa

In July, a group of 16 young people travelled to Honduras with the charity Habitat for Humanity. Habitat is a non-profit organisation which works in 85 countries throughout the world including Ireland. We were the first Irish team to work in Honduras and our aim was to build simple, decent housing at no profit for families in need.

Honduras is a poverty stricken country where the average wage is $85 per month. There are problems with gangs in the cities but we were working in the centre of the country in a rural mountain town called Siguatepeque. We worked with a local mason in a very poor neighbourhood on four houses for three weeks, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. On the worksite we did tasks such as bricklaying, mixing cement, moving blocks and sand, and plumbing and electrical work. It was very difficult as everything was done by hand, there were no power tools!

We had a few minor accidents such as the scaffolding that collapsed while I was on it bricklaying!! There were no proper toilets on the worksite so we had to use fly infested outhouses!! Suffice to say they were left unused by us!!

The Honduran people were extremely friendly and courteous to us, always generous even when they could not always afford to be. It was heartbreaking to see the children with very little. Many did not have shoes so we decided to leave some clothes and shoes for them.

The trip was an amazing experience and made us realise how lucky we are and how it was possible to make a difference to the lives of other people. We would like to thank those who assisted us or donated money to our fundraising attempts."

Power Chords

Have a look at idealist.org
It's a good site, lists of possibilities.
Unfortunately quite a few of those possibilities involve thousands of euros.

cailinoBAC

I came across this site before, it's UK based, but I wouldn't say that would be a problem
http://originalvolunteers.co.uk/?gclid=COXR29nv2Y0CFSUUEAodkmW_YQ

Glacier

Any ideas on where to go if you want to do like emergency relief/build houses but are unskilled? Teaching english wouldn't appeal to me.

edanto

What about something like Sawa's post above?

Glacier

I'd be sort of wanting a career though, not just a short-term thing. I dropped out of UCD & want to be able to say I'm doing something?

Ettie

Glacier,

This is something I did a good old while back! Went for 2 years as a development worker as opposed to volunteer with a French NGO as lived there at the time.

if you are looking for a 'career' (ie Long-term development work) you will need to do some training. I know my brother is doing training with a group called Viator Christi www.viatoreschristi.com and is hoping to go somewhere this year but it is for a min of 1 year I think. He graduated uni and has no idea of what he wants but defo not anything to do with his degree!!!!!!! I think, might be miles off here, but you may also get government grant aid for this type of work.

I would suggest www.comlamh.org (umbrella group for NGOs in Ireland where all members are signatory to a code of conduct and practice)

Also Irish Aid (division of Dept of Foreign Affairs which looks after Overseas Aid Budget) has a drop-in centre on O'Connell Street, Dublin.

star gazer

Has anyone tried this organisation EIL volunteering abroad ? It's the first thing that comes up first in a serach for volunteering abroad.

Escapism...

Hi,

I'm going to do some travelling next year...so will have all this done before the volunteering - ie - i am not doin it for a free holiday!!!

Anyway for a few years now I have been interested in volunteering abroad. Although I have no previous experience of any volunteering work.

Does anyone have any tips on how i would go about researching this ? And any advice would also be appreciated...thanks in advance.

star gazer

A little bit late now but at the bottom is a list of organisations involved and they all probably have websites to go through or you could just contact Irish Aid for more information. Irish Aid’s Overseas Volunteering Fair

JackKelly

any idea of any overseas IT related volunteering organisations? I know (and have been away with) Camara, but they don't have any volunteers on the ground overseas afaik