BootsnAll Travel Community

Although I've never done it before I've looked into volunteering a couple of times. What I found was a bunch of expensive 'working holiday' projects.

I can understand paying for your food, but these profit making enterprises that hide behind the tax title of non-profit agencies have always annoyed me.

Have any of you ever come across one that truly is looking for volunteers. By that I mean one that doesn't cost as much as a holiday trip? To date, I haven't.

A lot of folks seem to be looking for this sort of thing.

The biggest problem is that most of them are looking to visit a new place, contribute something that isn't particularly valuable, and have their expenses paid while doing so.

I'll explain (and forgive my use of "you" here. It doesn't necessarily refer to you Viaggero, it's just a gramatically simple way of explaining it):

Unless you have something genuinely useful to add to a project (e.g. medical or technical skills) then you're contributing no more than a local person would (probably less, since you likely lack his/her local language skills) and expecting a higher standard of living.

It's unreasonable to expect a situation where you pay any less than your full cost of living, plus the costs of training you up, which effectively ends up costing almost what a holiday trip will. If you're paying much less than that, the organization may as well just hire a local person to do whatever you'd be doing. The work will get done at a similar cost, AND it will provide a job.

There ARE organizations that provide truly volunteer experiences, but they're mostly for people with specific skills (e.g. Medecins Sans Frontieres) or for people with lots of experience running NGO type projects.

(You're quite right to be annoyed at SOME of these "volunteer" organizations though... I've heard a couple of terrible stories of local people being laid off in favour of rich foreigners on holidays who are paying to do their old jobs.)

We've found a couple that truly are volunteering - we turn up and give what we can and organise our own transport, food and housing. Certainly expect to do that.
What's your skill set?

Some of my friends have had good success by making their own independent volunteer arrangements. There are plenty of potential organizations, including grassroots ones, listed at idealist.org. Writing to the ones that appeal to you may well yield some good 'real' volunteer opportunities.

Yes, There are genuine grass-roots organisations truly looking for volunteers.

What are your skills/interests?

If you enjoy working with cats (in your picture) try www.intiwarayassi.org in Bolivia, that have some of the smaller cats (maybe Pumas) there. You can volunteer for 2+ week and pay to cover your food costs.

There are other free and low-cost volunteer placements in South America here:
www.volunteersouthamerica.net

HTH
Steve

Hiya Viaggero
I'm completely with you about volunteering being expensive, sort of makes it not volunteering at all. So I make it my duty to find holidays that are truly free, even though eco travel isn't meant to be all about volunteering I think the ethos of both are very interwinned and therefore write about it on Eco Travel Logue.

Here are a few links to truely free volunteer breaks:
Scroll down to bottom of page and click on WWOOFing - holidays on organic farms, all board and lodgings free in return for your work on farm. World-wide.
Eco company in France looking for volunteers to help build yurt campsite - they will provide food and accommodation.

Hope it helps.
Linda
www.ecotravellogue.com

There are many genuine grassroots organisations looking for volunteers but you just need to know where to find them. If you are interested in Central or South America visit
Volunteer Latin America If you are interested in Africa try Volunteer4africa.org

One thing with volunteering is......you can't expect it to be a free ticket to give you a fun adventure abroad. Wherever you live, you need to eat and sleep somewhere and get around on some form of transport. If you're off to Africa, you should at the very least expect to pay for your air ticket, ground transport once you arrive , your accomodation and food.
Hope this doesn't sound too much like a sermon. Just my thoughts.

Anytime you see an expensive volunteering project one of two things is happening. The majority are probably ripoffs. I've come across some that provide a great living to the directors and little else. There are in the minority those legitimate agencies that realize 90% of volunteers are worthless to them and so try to recover the costs of putting up with their volunteering. Here is the hard facts of life. Volunteers without skills have little value. Being able to teach English, cook in an orphanage or play with kids is not a skill. I've worked with such organizations in Central and South America. In those regions, the average backpack volunteer is going to need at least $15 a day to survive under even the most (by gringo standards) horrid conditions. On average if they can get 6 hours a day out of them it is good. But if that same person were to donate that $15 a day and stay home, they could hire three locals(all of whom are desperate for the work) each of whom would work 10 hours a day. I've seen Habitat for Humanity projects where the average unskilled gringo spends enough in 2 weeks to hire a local construction worker for a year.

So what is the best way to help? Have some skills that are needed. Skilled locals are available but can't afford to volunteer much in the way of time. Any kind of medical skill, including vet skills are desperately needed. An orthopedic or cosmetic surgeon is worth their weight in gold. Work place injuries are very common. Those people are worshipped as angels. Computer skills are also needed. Any modern building skills, especially if you come from places like Florida or California where construction people know how to build relatively earthquake or hurricane proof structures and can teach those skills to locals are great. Just look at China and Mynamar as examples. Diarrhea kills more children than anything else. Something as simple as a modern septic tank can save many lives. Doesn't have to be that dramatic. Can you teach someone to type? You have just made them qualified for a job that pays three times more than they have ever earned. At home, any community college probably offers programs that in a semester or two can teach you how to make very effective contributions.

Yeah, def. an issue. some of them are so expensive it's just not worth it nor is it worthwhile for the people you are actually trying to help. Not to boast my site on here but i have done a LOT of research on volunteering/travel, etc. I have a huge running list of places that are specifically not expensive. In fact there is one in spain that is 100% free and they cover your food and lodging.

here's the link to the volunteer info:

http://beersandbeans.com/traveler-information/volunteer...-working-on-the-road

Those are some great links! I'm going to def. add them to my list. i wish i could do the one in April in France. that sounds fun!

In college I spent my Spring Breaks volunteering with the Catholic Appalachian Project. We spent out days doing physical labor for the nuns on their rounds of the hollers. It was fascinating, I learned a lot, and I think we did a bit of good. We paid room and board, but nothing else.

Ergo, I believe it is possible to volunteer even on a short time period and still be of use.

Sadly, I don't have any suggestions for similar short-term overseas opportunities! Most of the ones I've seen have been either self-righteous high-end vacations, or standard exploitation schemes (a few of the WOOF, sorry to say).