Volunteering at orphanage

Hi there,

Am thinking of travelling to Thailand next October and volunteering for a few months at an orphanage. Have been doing some research on the internet but find it quite hard (or should I say almost impossible...?!) to find an interesting and inexpensive volunteering project... Never knew volunteering could be so expensive ! Am very motivated but unfortunately don't have the amount of money that some of the organisations ask for volunteering work... Please let me know if you've worked as a volunteer at an orphanage or if you've got any ideas... Thanks in advance ;) !

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.

yeah, i think it's absolutely ridiculous for organizations to be charging volunteers large sums of money in exchange for using the volunteer's services. depending on where you're from, there are some excellent volunteer programs that pay you a basic living allowance return airfare, medical insurance, and accomodation costs on top of training (i.e. language culture). i'm not sure where you're from, but if in australia try vida volunteers, or AYAD. otherwise, i know UN volunteers and the peace brigade also have great volunteer programs. i wouldn't pay any money to volunteer - you're exchanging your skills and building capacity - and that is more than adequate to offset so-called training and lodging expenses the organisation would incur.

Hi guys,

Thanks a lot for your help and advice... I did get some interesting links and I will definitely check them out. Even though I'm convinced lots of serious help is needed over there, some people seem to make a living from all those so-called volunteering projects for which you pay thousands of dollars (btw usually no flights included !)... Where is all that money going ?? I understand that each volunteer costs some money, but that simply doesnt justify the amounts of money some of them dare to ask. Some organisations talk about the kids in orphanages as if they're animals in a zoo where you've got to pay entrance money to go and see them... Seriously, that's scandalous. When JJack says 99,9% of volunteers are tourists that are only doing volunteering work to get "nice" photos, then I guess that I'm just one of those 0,1 % of travellers that just want to HELP without having to pay for that.

Please keep sending all your advice and ideas, I really appreciate it ;)

Cheers

globieke
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<hr>some people seem to make a living from all those so-called volunteering projects for which you pay thousands of dollars (btw usually no flights included !)... <hr></blockquote>
Can you send me some links to these programs? You can either private message me or post them here. I have some free time coming up and I'd like to take a closer look at this industry.

Thanks.

No worries FutureExpat, I've sent you some random links to just a couple of these projects... You'll find many more just looking on the internet. Thought I had seen the worst, until I found this website today of some organisation that asks 4095 USD for a volunteering project of 12 weeks, NO food, NO flights, NO insurance included.... Uh ?! Are some people actually paying this kind of money for volunteering ?? And where is all the money going ? One would hope it goes straight to the kids in the orphanages, but unfortunately I seriously doubt that...

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<hr>Are some people actually paying this kind of money for volunteering ??<hr></blockquote>No, people are paying that kind of money for an experience that will give them some good photo ops and stories to tell back home. It started earlier, but after the tsunami the industry exploded as the thais saw all these westerners searching desperately for a way to make their beach holiday seem more interesting and exotic than the next guys. There were hardly any posts on this site 4 or 5 years ago from people looking to volunteer, just as there weren't posts from people looking for places to practice yoga and have coffee poured up their bums, but look at it today. As I mentioned, the thais are absolute masters at sniffing out what westerners are looking for at any given time and cashing in on it. They are sitting around right now trying to guess what the next one will be... hilltribe trekking? Nope, been done to death, elephant riding? Getting tougher as people become worried about the treatment of the elephants (but elephant nature reserves are beginning to boom), bamboo rafting? Sure, still lots of demand for that. Massage classes? Yep, still a growing industry. Cooking classes? Yep, a growing industry, but getting more and more competitive. Yoga? Oh yeah, still a growing trend. Colonic cleansing? Absolutely - there will always be idiots out there. Volunteering? Sure, the trend hasn't been exhausted yet, but the demand is likely to begin dropping off over the next year or so.

But the big question for them is - what will be the next big thing?

AIDSTEMPLE.ORG,
LOPBURI

Hi, there has been some good responses in here and an interesting discussion.
Please also check out www.mirrorartgroup.org I think you'll find they are not expensive, but they do cover their (low) costs. Sorry they are not an orphanage, but help poor ethnic minorities. You can certainly teach and play with kids that'd really appreciate your help through Mirror.

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Before anyone signs up for volunteer work through International Field Research Expeditions (IFRE), a US-based nonprofit with programs in Thailand and many other countries, be sure to get firm commitments about what they're providing and how good a local support structure they have. My adult son spent five weeks in Thailand with IFRE and found the support to be totally lacking. For the nearly $1,000 program fee, they basically provided a place to sleep (nice enough) and a small stipend (insufficient) for food. There was no guidance about how best to teach English to the Thai-only speakers in the school to which he was assigned, and the school only scheduled him for an hour or two of volunteer work a day. The only other volunteer quit after two days, so my son was on his own for the rest of the time. Since the school was in a small village in which no one spoke English, it was a very lonely experience. He never even met the supposed Thai staff, and had one phone conversation in a month (precipitated by the other volunteer's departure.) Moral of the story: if the program fees are really cheap, there's not likely to be much of a program.