Volunteer Vacations

So you want to change the world. And you’d sure like to see the rest of the world. Start small. Start with a volunteer vacation. Take a trip to somewhere you’ve always wanted to go and offer your time to help out the cause you find closest to your heart. These vacations are becoming more and more popular. From the gritty to the easy, your volunteer vacation can take many forms.

But how do you begin to choose? Don’t volunteer because you feel like you should. Volunteerism should be voluntary – choosing to give your time to a cause you believe in sincerely. Being coerced by your guilt and peers to do the right thing shouldn’t result in volunteerism. It should result in a check or cash donation. If you want to give your time, make sure it is because you sincerely want to make a difference.

So, we’re volunteering for the right reasons? Check. Then start to do your research. Make sure the organization is good standing and has a solid track record. You can find a lot of groups on www.guidestar.org, www.charitynavigator.org, and www.idealist.org. You can also check with the State Department or the embassy in the country you are going to visit. Find out how other people who have volunteered in the organization fared on their visits. Don’t go in blind. There are a lot of scams and badly-run groups out there ready to exploit you, so do due diligence.

Environmentalist? Volunteer with a green organization to care for and clean up the land. The American Hiking Society offers trips where you rebuild paths and shelter while you hike around the countryside. The Audobon Society offers the chance to help save Pink River Dolphins of the Amazon or the reefs of Fiji.

Love children? Take a vacation while giving your time and attention to at-risk children across the globe. There are programs to help nurses in children’s clinics in Romania, to rock babies in orphanages in China, and to teach English to children in Peru. You will leave feeling like you left a little bit of yourself that and take home more love than you can imagine.

Build bonds while building a home with Habitat for Humanity. If you want to leave a permanent mark on the country you visit, volunteer to build a home. You will work along side a few members of the family you are building the home for and other volunteers. Habitat has programs in more than 3,000 communities. Chances are, they’ll be everywhere you want to go.

Don’t want to spend your ENTIRE vacation volunteering? There are other ways to do it. Some organizations would be happy for you to carry equipment and goods to the country with you. You can also donate the miles you accumulate on your trip to different nonprofits.

Why do they ask us to pay fees? I mean, I’ve already offered my time, and now they want my money? The answer is simple: it costs money to have volunteers. From finding the right place for you to building the projects you work on, it often takes a lot of time and administration to set up your program. There is a fact as charging too much for volunteering, however. Again, make sure you check out the background of an organization before you agree to give them any money. You want to make sure the organization spends the lion’s share of its budget on programs. If 90 percent of its budget goes to programs, that means 90 cents on the dollar go directly to the people you are trying to help.

Get out there and share the best parts of you with the world. You will get a chance to get to know like-minded people, get a sense of fulfillment, and take home memories that will feed your soul for years to come.

Check out:

http://www.globalvolunteers.org/

http://www.justgive.org/html/ways/vacations.html

http://www.idealist.org