Long Term Volunteering

Hi there,

You're right that there are many "voluntourism" programmes out there where is seems as though helping others make a better life for themselves seems to be a secondary motive to making money from volunteers.

A previous poster mentioned WOOF, and I have also heard good things about:
http://grassrootsvolunteering.org/
and the programmes offered here (if you had a change of plan from Asia!):
http://www.volunteersouthamerica.net/

Other organisations for longer-term (12 months+) placements include VSO for those with professional skills. They pay your flights and living expenses plus a small daily allowance which is enough for food/basics. You need to do some fundraising, but it's not a crazy amount. I believe they're multinational, so could be options there. Happy to offer advice on their application process if you'd like, as I'm registered with them as a volunteer.

In the UK there are also organisations who have shorter-term Govt-funded placements - 12 weeks or so - for those in the 18-25 age category. ICS and Raleigh are a couple of examples - there may be something similar in your home country if you're not UK-based.

Hope this helps,

Julie

I would certainly be wary of any volunteer program that asks for unskilled people to work in Asia (or anywhere else in the world) and charges them for the opportunity. You are unlikely to add value and you’ll probably end up on a glorified vacation where the local people are bemused as to why you are there.

You don’t say if you have any specialist skills – teaching skills, legal skills, finance, sales, marketing?? An organization like Challenges Worldwide http://challengesworldwide.com/current-assignments/ places skilled volunteers in management roles abroad. This is an organization based in Scotland but it provides a good model of what volunteer projects should be about.

One of my 'favourite', ie. the most appropriate, photos that I have seen of a voluntourism project was in South America where the foreigners were digging in a garden in someone's front yard - and the locals were all sitting around watching them.

The photo was supposed to show that you get to meet the locals on the project, but all it showed was everything that is wrong with voluntourism. You are taking jobs from locals, you are teaching them the begging mentality, etc.

If you are unskilled, why can't a rich local do the job instead of you? There are plenty of rich locals. What are they doing?