Any one have any good (or bad) experiences doing volunteer work abroad?

I'm looking into doing this program with a buddy:

http://www.crossculturalsolutions.org/choosing_your_program/insight_abroad/

We're between Brazil, Russia and Peru, and I've barely been to any other countries, so any insight on where to go would also be appreciated.

I just got back from northern Thailand where I was teaching English. Amazing experience in a program where you get a lot of freedom to do things how you want to do them. I stayed past the original 2 week program for an extra month to move on to teaching at very poor migrant Burmese schools in Thailand and then to getting involved with sponsoring the schools. Going back to open my own school on the China/Burma border in mid-April. You really feel wanted there and the people you meet in the area are more interesting than anywhere else I have been as most work with non profit organizations and lead interesting lives. I've also befriended a lot of local people and had good luck with women there.
I found the program through cadip.com where they have a lot of other choices also.
If you want to see some pics of the area and videos of teaching u can find them on facebook. Just search for Eugene Leader and u can view them without adding me as a friend.

I did met a lot of volunteers and befriended the administrator of a pretty large VSO program in Africa during some work there.

I get the feeling that the one week program you are looking at is sort of a vacation package they sell to raise money for the program and make people interested in staying longer periods. I dont see how anyone could add much to a community in such a short time.

Normal contracts in my experience starts at one year unless you have specific skills that makes it worthwile to ship you somewhere. They are also paid, not much of course but enough to cover living.

I spent 3 weeks doing work in a remote area of Panama with Engineers Without Borders. We were able to accomplish a lot in the 3 week period due to lots of planning and help from the Peace Corps. Three of us went from my chapter and we stayed with Peace Corps Volunteers. I slept on the floor of someone's thatch roof hut, he had one of the only running "showers" in the community which was a nice perk. We helped them build a water collection and distribution system to a subset of the community that had no running water.

It was a great experience and lots of hard work. I busted my ass for those three weeks and by the time I left everything I had was wet and moldy. Unfortunately the rainy season sneaked up on us a little early. Every day I'd hike to the project site in the morning and hike back once the rain got too heavy to work. This left me no time to dry my clothes. Each morning I'd put on my least wet set of clothes.

So despite a lot of awful conditions it was a very rewarding trip, and it was quite an amazing experience as the time went on to see how much the community appreciated the work we were doing. All in all 3 weeks was very short. It worked for us because we were working with the Peace Corps that had a long standing relationship within the community. Also, our objective basically build something and leave. I felt like we were really starting to be accepted by the community and barely beginning to really understand their way of life.

Being part of an organization that really understands the community is very important I feel. You can't see this community needs X and show up and expect to give it to them and have everything work out. I'd do a lot of research on the group you plan on going with and try to understand their philosophies and find out what sort of success and impact they have had in the past.

So if that sounds like fun let me know, for what they are charging I'm sure we'd let you come along on our next trip if you made a donation of that size. Our entire budget including travel for 3 was $4k. Our next project will probably be $10-25k and be of a similar nature in Honduras. It will hopefully be less manual labor for the engineers we send there and nicer conditions.

I did a 5 week trip to Tanzania a few years ago and built a kindergarten among other things. The trip was really worthwhile and taught me a lot about the value of money and the importance of family and I'm super glad I went on it. That being said, I was really young and as such we were kind of insulated from the community most of the time which really sucked in hindsight. It was a lot more comfortable for us to have a safe place to go back to at night and mostly western food (still bucket showers and hole in the ground latrines and rare electricity but still miles beyond standard living conditions), but at the same time I really regret not trying to immerse myself in the culture more as I feel like I would have learned 10x more. So yeah my one piece of advice would be to try to learn as much of the language as you can and hang out with locals and try to meet a ton of new people to get the max value out of the trip.

I'd love to do an Engineers without borders trip in the future. Badger, what is the application process for those things like? Do you have to have your degree? Your P.Eng? How much prep work is put into each trip?

Check with your local chapter (there are both student and professional chapters here in Austin). You don't even need to be an engineer to join, but most established groups will be choose who travels for an implementation trip based on skills, time spent working on the project and amount of fundraising done.

Someone is in Honduras right now scoping out our next project. I'm guessing the implementation won't happen for at least another year. Things move pretty slowly since most members have full time jobs.

It's a young organization that has exploded in popularity. Chances are there is a chapter near you. It's also likely that it is a relatively new chapter with a lot of room for involvement.

krantz, please don't pay $$$$$ to agents that organize these placements. I was jobs coordinator at a volunteer organization for three months and pretty much everyone that used an agent was basically robbed. There was one guy that paid £3000 pounds for a combined Spanish lesson/volunteer placement program for 3 months. We charge $160-200 a month, Spanish classes can't cost you more than $10/hour. Sounds like his agent kept about half the money to me. I'm looking at that $1695 fee for one week and I want to cry because I know the volunteer organization is going to see so little. $1000 is a gorgeous and big new cage for a puma where I worked.

The organization I worked at is Inti Wara Yassi. I highly highly recommend them. That is, if you don't mind getting dirty and hard physical work. Even if you're not an animal person, you'll learn to love them all. I can honestly say that coming here was one of the best things I've done in my life.

beanznrice is a site of two friends of mine that has a few other good options in South America.

what

A friend of mine is doing a 2 year placement in Ethiopia through http://www.vsocan.org/default.aspx

I'm not sure if they have American affiliates but just thought I would throw my 2 cents in.

Ya I'm very interested in this as well.

It seems like it's nearly impossible to get opportunities with organizations that I know are reputable without an advanced degree. So I'm stuck looking through all sorts of organizations, none of which I really know. No idea how to pick one or find out more about them (from an outside source). Also, I'm really not interested in going to a summer camp abroad, which many seem like.

Links for SE Asian organizations would be highly appreciated. Please don't google and copy/paste, only post if you know and endorse the organization.

random thoughts as they enter into my head:

I've done 2 very short volunteer thingos, 3 weeks Zambia, 5 weeks Peru

yes there are some agents who have huge fees. For example I think I paid like 2-3k for the Zambia one, and some people who went through a diff agent paid twice that for the same thing

If you do anything under 6 months, you probably will have to pay some money. It's kind of like they give you a vacation and you pay them for it, which they can then use to do whatever good they are trying to do. Your money will probably end up doing way more good that your actual work.

I found it awesome when I was in Zambia. I felt what I was doing was actually helping some (fixing up a hospital). In Peru, not really, the locals could have easily done what we were doing themselves for a bit of money. I can elaborate on this if you want

In both cases it was great getting a real good look into the culture. Without volunteering I don't see how you could get a good as look in only one month. Whoever running the thing will speak the local language and help you communicate as best you can. You will probably not be near a main touristy spot, and I reckon the people are more friendly and open to you when they know what you're trying to do. It's great getting to know some of the locals well. I find it quite hard to learn about different culture by simply visiting the place, even for a while, but maybe that's just me

Also, for me, it made me really think about the best way to help people. Having it (low standard of living) right up in your face makes you really think about it. Will giving them food hurt them long run? Should we just give them infrastructure and education? Are they happier left alone?

I also didn't know much about the AIDS situation in Africa. It's insane.

Also, I now personally know a couple people who I can give money too, and know fairly well how they are going to use it. I find it quite hard to find a worthy charity.

Some rando volunteered in Zambia in the same place I did, and he made this video

If anyone wants I can PM contact info to the guys in Zambia, due to some bureaucratic BS I'm not posting it publicly

fo rizzle

amazing thread.

cadip.org I went to the one in northern Thailand no teaching experience needed or degree required and very enjoyable.