The Increasing Cost Of Volunteering Abroad

This is certainly a topic I had and still have to deal with. I'm about to graduate from school and planned to volunteer abroad for a year. On the one hand I was shocked about the costs this causes. On the other hand it is understandable. The organisations that make you pay a lot to volunteer are usually profit ones, so of course they want to get something out of it. In Germany, where I live, there are also some government supported programmes and organizations, to get into one of those you have to write an application and have better chances to get in when you have a lot of experience in the field of your volunteering work. It does make sence too, cause of course countries only want to send out those people who they can be sure represent them well and are going to do a good job. I still got one open application, so hopefully this works out!!

nice article. it is an interesting topic. Paying for the trip allows the money that the organization raises to go to the people that they are helping, which is a good thing. Though sometimes it can be hard to find people or ways to raise the funds, so that you can volunteer aboard.

No doubt many people who really want to volunteer are prohibited from doing so because of the fees. If organizations really want volunteers, they might have to decrease their costs. Then they could make the same amount of money or even more money through more volunteers, and more people could volunteer because they could afford it. This is such a simple theory. There must be something wrong with it.

$20K sounds exorbitant, but she was doing more than paying her way here. There are completely legitimate organizations out there that charge a fee, but you have to ask where the funds are being allocated, how they operate, who they are. You can assume it takes expertise to work with the local organizations and coordinate volunteer placements, and a high degree of trust and confidence in you, the volunteer to be there to observe, let alone, partake in their work. Much like it takes a manager to provide guidance to an intern and orient them to working in a new company, there's work involved in managing unskilled, short-term volunteers. There's also the required sensitivity to the local culture and language. It's definitely an experience for all parties involved, so you want to know the organization very well before you commit.

Volunteering abroad is a transformative event and most people who do so are usually impacted more by the trip than the people they serve. $20, 000 is over the top for a v-trip – i hope some of the money actually went to the kids!

My organization, Voluntraveler, charges fees for volunteering with its partner charity Para el Mundo in Mancora Peru. These fees offset the admin costs of running the charity, so money that is donated to the charity goes right to the programs. Orgs like ours have some overhead costs (staff salaries, website hosting, etc) sure, but you benefit from working with an established organization making integration into the community easier, and your stay in-country safer. Your time spent volunteering is more directed and focused since you participate in ongoing projects passed on as volunteers come and go. You also have the support and of fellow volunteers living in the volunteer house and the local staff. For more reasons to pay to volunteer, check: http://voluntraveler.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-pay-to-volunteer.html

PS Just showing up willing to ‘do something’ is not enough: if you haven’t the expertise to help in your local community you probably haven’t the expertise to volunteer to help in other places either without the necessary training. UCME (www.utilaecology.org) spends the first week of the volunteer programme providing its participants with the research skills and cultural awareness they need to be useful but even so, it takes usually a further 2 before they can make much contribution.
Valerie

Someone has to pay for the foreign volunteer’s transportation (including in-country), food, housing, security, administrative costs (work permits, residence permits, etc.), training and supervision — do you really expect an NGO or even a large INGO to pay these costs for an unskilled person to come for a few weeks for their own “feel good” experience? Instead, NGOs use funds to *hire* local people, who are desperate for income and skills to help them sustain themselves and their families. The local people’s livelihoods are the priority, not you.

Unless you are a person with immediately transferable skills needed in the developing world (so you can train others in, say, building sustainable fisheries) or skills that cannot be found among the local population, you will, indeed, have to pay for your feel-good abroad experience, because it’s just not economically feasible to do it any other way. It’s about the local people in need, not you!

If you want to volunteer or work abroad and not pay for the experience, then get an area of expertise that is desperately needed abroad, learn another language well enough to work in it, gain volunteering or work experience where you are right now relating to what you want to do abroad (HIV education, urban farming cooperatives, medical care, veterinary medicine, rural engineering, teacher training, whatever) and be ready to devote at least six months (two years preferred). There are organizations that place such volunteers, and the volunteers often receive a small stipend to help with living expenses. Lots, lots more tips at the web site noted with my name.

important debate.

I’m involved with a campaign for more transparent volunteer practices, would be good to know what you think > fairtradevolunteering.com

one of the reasons I set-up Tribewanted was because I was frustrated with lack of transparency of funding in a lot of volunteer industry. Tribewanted is not volunteering, it’s community tourism where participatns $ generate sust.development and you learn and play a part in the projects. It’s an intro to international development through tourism rather as volunteering is often pitched ‘we need you or this community will perish’.

frequently communities don’t need volunteers – they need finance / other resources

frequently vol orgs set-up projects only once they have secured volunteers funds

running well-structured volunteer projects is expensive. so what we need is transparency. I think Fair Trade Volunteering can set at least one standard.

So for the forseeable future, overseas volunteering costs a lot. Accommodation, visas, airfares, the money just disappears. So why not skip all of that? If you have a limited amount of money, then dont try to spend it on a plane ticket, when a bus ticket to your local soup kitchen will take you well out of your comfort zone and teach you more than you could imagine.

Plus, this way you are the local making a change in your community. You dont have to go overseas to come across a completely different culture or to feel out of your depth. There are plenty of projects in our own country where you can make a huge difference, and still get the warm feeling and incredible insight. And you can do it more often and actually create significant relationships.

Want to care for the environment – help protect the Great Barrier Reef. Want to help someone less fortunate than yourself – there’s a million ways and places, just open your eyes and be creative. It might be as simple as not walking past the homeless man in the train station, or you can rebuild a family’s home that was destroyed in a natural disaster last year.

Of course in the meantime you can save up for that volunteer trip in India, send supplies to Africa, or learn a trade that can be used in Central America. Just don’t be so blind to the opportunities in your own country.