Volunteering abroad?

comrade.salad

Hey,

a friend and I are hoping to go to Africa this summer for about a month to do some volunteer work. We are both students so we are pretty strapped for cash, but have been saving for a while now. Ideally we would like to go to Kenya. I have done volunteer work abroad before, but it wasn't for a non profit organisation and I really felt that my money was the only helpful contribution I made. I was just wondering if people knew any good websites or organisations that would suit us.

Thanks

irish-anabel

Hope you don't mind me hijacking but I was just about to post something like this and thought I'd search it first.
Anyone??
Looking to do the same.

dory

You really just have to research yourself by using all the websites Irish Aid recommend, and whatever else you can find. SUAS is good, but you might have missed the closing date.
Is als depends on what you're looking for, what your skills are etc.
General rule of thumb is the less skills you have, the less time you're willing to go for and the less training you do (most dor 7 - 9 months), then the more you will pay.

Give me more info on you and I can help. Also, for most big organisations you'll have to fundraise between 3 and 5 thousand. Good luck doing that in a recession!
If you're adventurous and will go it alone then you can pay less.

irish-anabel

What kind of skills do you need? And the training goes on for that long? The ones I've been looking at just have maybe 3 training days over a period of time.
I'm finding it pretty hard to figure out what's what!

dory

Well the one I went with I started meetings in September and went to one a week until the summer. Im sure there are different ones, I'm just saying from my experience the less training the more they charge. There are some that require absolutely no training and will charge you 1500 Euro for 2 weeks, flights and everything else will be extra.

And by skills I mean anything that your average Joe in the country you're going to can't do. So anything you went to college/training place for. Labouring for example can be done by local people and generally an Irish charity will only bring Irish people to the country to do the labouring if those Irish people are going to fundraise the money needed to buy bricks and all that.
Now if you have the resources to fundraise the 5000 they'll expect then go for it.
All I'm saying is if you tell me your budget I can advise.

For example, a friend of mine is volunteering completely for free by just flying to Calcutta and starting work with Mother Teresa's people. The no pre-arranging means no cost.

irish-anabel

Well I could possibly raise 1000.
I'm doing my Leaving Cert so while my friends are planning a leaving cert holiday I decided I'd rather spend my money in a different way. I would go for tops 2 months if it happens and I'm interested in working in an orphanage or something, I'm not quite cut out for say building houses because I'm not physically very strong and am female! That isn't to say that I'm scared of hard work or anything though.
This probably all seems like wishful thinking!

dory

irish-anabel wrote: »

Well I could possibly raise 1000.
I'm doing my Leaving Cert so while my friends are planning a leaving cert holiday I decided I'd rather spend my money in a different way. I would go for tops 2 months if it happens and I'm interested in working in an orphanage or something, I'm not quite cut out for say building houses because I'm not physically very strong and am female! That isn't to say that I'm scared of hard work or anything though.
This probably all seems like wishful thinking!

Well that sounds great. Sure I remember the amount of money we spent on alcohol on our LC holiday. Such a waste. Well, with a 1000 Euro you really have to go it alone a bit. Any organisation will expect you to raise about 3000 to go. I think Calcutta would be a great option. You can get flights for between 300 and 500 Euro, and could live on the rest. It would be very challenging to suddenly arrive there on your own. If you could find a group of Irish people going out (who are not part of a charity who will want you to fundraise to pay for the charity itself) you would be doing great.

South America, you'd need Spanish, unless you could make your way to Bolivia but the flights would be crazy.

You can do it if you spend a hell of a lot of time researching. My brother found a place in Peru that aren't expecting anything but his labour from him. It just takes time.

star gazer

Volunteeringoptions.org has a system for finding an organisation that might suit you. Take a look through the site for more info.
Check the other threads in this forum for more also.
dochas.ie has a list of Irish NGOs that have various programs overseas.