Nowadays volunteering abroad is gaining popularity. It offers opportunities for people to experience regional diversities. However, there are few things to be kept in mind before heading for volunteering abroad.
Things To Consider
- Free Volunteering Abroad
There are tremendous volunteering opportunities, which are available for free and don’t require you paying single penny. However, there are few such volunteering works that mention “free’ and require you to pay for other services. Such organizations will lure you for free volunteering, and then will charge you for other services, such as salsa lessons, language or stay in their highly priced hotels.
There is some other volunteering as well which are supportive, affordable and flexible. Such organizations provide you a great experience and make your volunteering easy. You don’t need to worry about credentials and logistics of your project.
Meals and housing are taken care of by them. Moreover, there are other small valuable benefits such as emergency plans and some other person measuring the impact of your project to ensure that it’s actually creating a difference.
- High Prices don’t Signify High Quality
Though quality comes at a cost, it may not be true in case of several volunteering organizations, which charge heavily as they are offering volunteering chances along with adventure activities such as surfing or bike treks.
Though this may be something what you are looking for, it’s imperial to understand that these opportunities are more related to tourism than volunteering and you are required to pay for it.
Therefore, ask yourself, what exactly you are looking for and find the matching opportunities. You can do detailed research about each organization clearly understanding its mission and project purpose. You can take reviews and feedback from the past volunteers and development professionals.
- Plan The Logistics
Most of the volunteering opportunities are offered by “developing countries” such as Morocco, Peru or Cambodia. If you haven’t travelled a lot internationally, then it’s important that you do homework and checkout on the type of service opportunity that you are joining, details related to accommodation and food.
Other things such as project supervision, airport pickup and pre-departure mentorship may seem to be small, also becomes quite important when you are abroad.
Some essential aspects of planning logistics one step ahead are about making a budget, and finding out ways to finance your trip cost.
There are various organizations offering combined funding platforms which allow volunteers creating a fundraising campaign, sharing the campaigns with others, details of organization and project in which they will be working and collecting donations online to support their work and travel.
- Tourists v/s Volunteers
Tourist and volunteers visit abroad for different reasons. In case of volunteering, it is important to approach the field in time with right attitude. Volunteers are expected to serve while tourists are served.
As a volunteer, you must work beyond your cultural boundaries and must operate in conditions which vary from your daily life. You can opt for exciting volunteering in Costa Rica which will provide you tremendous learning opportunities.
Conclusion
Keep it in mind that volunteering is all about your overall growth. So listen carefully and perform well!