Volunteering at orphanage

After the John Mark Karr fiasco, it will be much harder to find opportunities to work around children, volunteer or otherwise.

Try the Pattaya Orphanage. They have website. No charge to you. You require police check.

For the past couple years "volunteering" is the latest trend in Thailand (right behind cooking classes, PADI certification and yoga). Like every other trend, the Thais quickly learn to capitalize on it. A couple years from now volunteering will no longer be trendy, and the only people interested in volunteering will be serious people with the time dedication and skills to properly contribute. At that time the associated fees will disappear. The way it is right now 99.99% of the volunteers are tourists looking for a one or two week stint doing something that will provide some new photo opportunities and raise the exotic-factor of their beach holiday to their friends back home. As such these volunteers cost more money than they are worth (takes time and resources to train, house and feed volunteers), hence the fee. When you think about it it is completely understandable.

previouse tsunami area. kuraburi, phang nga. the area is beautiful

and chiang rai hilltribe school hv around 300 kids. from 6 tribes. and other underpriviledge kids.

Check out andamandiscoveries.comvolun-tourism

or northandamantsunamirelief.comtsunami relief

in Kuraburi (about 3 hrs by bus from phuket, or 1 hr from ranong).

you can do homestays or voluntourism etc.

Here's a link and another: for this one I suggest you make direct contact. If you can committ to several months and you are a qualified and screenable applicant, you might be able to bypass some of the agencies that now are some sort of pay arrangement. Just remember that for any organization it is expensive and time consuming to orient any volunteer - whether they are a nurse, or just a good hearted soul willing to change diapers, entertain and feed children in need.

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<hr>As such these volunteers cost more money than they are worth (takes time and resources to train, house and feed volunteers), hence the fee<hr></blockquote>
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<hr>Just remember that for any organization it is expensive and time consuming to orient any volunteer <hr></blockquote>
It's funny people still believe this stuff. Average Thai worker makes far less than 20,000 baht a month. If you had a Thai worker spending 8 hours a day training volunteer for a week it would cost less than 5,000 baht. If the Thai worker was going about their work and the volunteers were observing, it wouldn't even be an added expense. If you had a group of vounteers together, any cost would again be greatly reduced. Food and lodging? Incredibly cheap.

It costs them very little to host volunteers. These are businesses, plain and simple.

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<hr>It costs them very little to host volunteers. These are businesses, plain and simple. <hr></blockquote>I did say in the same post that "Like every other trend, the Thais quickly learn to capitalize on it". I was trying to be a little more diplomatic by adding that there are costs involved with coordinating volunteers.

Right. And you did say put volunteering in quotation marks the first time.

So we can agree that these costs are just the costs of doing business?

I have to be diplomatic in the real world in Thailand. On the internet I'm honest and blunt, two traits that don't go down well in day-to-day life here.

I just don't like seeing good people trying to do good things taken advantage of by criminals, so I try to spell it out for them exactly what is going on.