NEWS:Volunteering Abroad, What do they do?
Volunteering abroad is selling like a hot pancake in the US and Europe. In big universities they would call it a “gap year”. Volunteering abroad is like paying to work for free. Students and even adults take time off from their daily busy day to stay in a remote area somewhere to take time to help other people. As parents and educators acknowledge the transcendental effect of volunteering abroad to their children they support the idea of spending, sending their kids abroad to volunteer.
There so many organizations and agencies that sends volunteers to different parts of the world. Like Travel to Teach, an international volunteering travel organization and the IVP or International Volunteer Program, a non-profit international organization that encourages volunteerism in the Latin America, United States and Europe.
Articles have been written by so many volunteers to aware the oncoming volunteers of the reality of the situation. That volunteering abroad is not a holiday spent in sun-kissed beaches and air-conditioned villas but indeed a total sacrifice from everything that you are used to. From the accommodation to food, the environment to the people…everything.
Yet, we always wonder what the volunteers will do in these places like Africa, Philippines or Vietnam. It depends on what you can offer the organization. If you are good with languages or the English language then you can volunteer to teach children living in the middle of the mountain in the Philippines or Africa perhaps. You will then know that children will have to walk for two or three hours to go to you and learn. Or perhaps help build houses and communities destroyed by war. Or teach a certain community to build irrigation for the rice plants. Or simply packed food for the hungry community in the middle of Africa or Afghanistan. The choices are limitless…you just need to havea pair of hands, a budget and a big heart to be able to help others.
