Now volunteering is getting more and more popular, the amount of organizations that offer projects is increasing by the day. So how do you know which company is good for you? Typing in ‘volunteer abroad’ in Google, will probably only make you more confused than you already are, seen the fact that the results are uncountable. I will give you some tips on how you can narrow your search and find the right organization for you.
1. Where do you want to go?
The first thing that you need to consider is where you want to go. Typing in ‘volunteer abroad Ghana’ will already eliminate more than half of the volunteer organizations and makes your search a slight bit easier. The next question that rises is how you would know where to go. There are a million beautiful places that need you as a volunteer. What helped me a lot in my search was to make a list of the countries I really wanted to go to and put all the advantages and disadvantages behind it. Consider language, what you think you’ll spend in the country, culture, flight, and weather, just to give you some ideas. Or, if you’re a less rational person, follow your feelings. Think your choice over though; the location of where you volunteer will very much influence your experience abroad. It can never hurt to read up on a country’s history and culture before actually going there.
2. What do you want to do?
Now you decided to go to Afrika, the next step would be choosing a project. If you haven’t got any idea what you want to do, think about if you want to work with children or adults, or that you rather work with animals and be in nature all day. For students, volunteering abroad can be very helpful to further build your CV and you can often get credits for your work. Don’t forget to ask your university if they already support certain projects or have any recommendations, because they often do.
3. What are you looking for?
After figuring out what to do and where to go, there are probably still a lot of organizations that fit that search. So the next step would be: what are you looking for in an organization? Do you want them to be well known, or do you prefer a smaller company? How much staff support do you want? Think also about the activities outside volunteering, do you want your whole trip to be planned out by them, or do you rather fill in your own free time? And not unimportant, how much are you willing to pay for your abroad experience? When you compare prices, see what you get for the given price. Some things you need to consider: Is food included? How many meals a day do you get? Is the flight included? Is housing included?
4. What are they looking for?
The things you look for in an organization might be specific, but that works vice versa. I’m talking about identity components like age, religion, race, sexual orientation. Some of the organizations for example have an age minimum of 18, or are only designed for a certain group of people. Don’t forget to look at that before you spend all your time reading up on them.
5.Investigate the organization’s identity.
Now you probably narrowed your search down to three or four organizations who all offer the same kind of service. My advice is to examine the organization’s philosophy. Why do they send people abroad, who is behind the organization, what are their goals and ideals. And in this stadium, definitely don’t forget to read other volunteer’s testimonials about their experiences. Try to find people’s reviews on other websites as well or on different social networks like Facebook or MySpace. Be critical.
6. The final pick.
If you’re still in dubio about something, my best advice would be to trust your feeling. With which of the companies do you feel most comfortable? If still none of the companies fit your ideas, maybe you want to consider finding a volunteer placement yourself. It is a lot more time and effort, but you might be able to find something completely to your taste.
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Offering 9 new countries is not a small thing! Next to Costa Rica and Bolivia, uVolunteer now expanded to Asia and Africa as well and we added Argentina, Nicaragua and Peru to our Latin American collection. At the office, we are all very excited to see how this will all turn out and any feedback on our new site is more than welcome! To make things even more excited, Nat made us all ´buy´ a country for 500 Colones - I know, it sounds like a fortune, but he´s really not that cruel. $1 already sounds a lot less intimidating right? If someone applies for your country first, you get to keep the lot! so… Sign up for Kenya and help me win the lottery!!!! : )
