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This year, over ten million people will go abroad, eager to find the perfect blend of adventure and altruism. Volunteer travel can help you find your place in the world–and find out what you’re made of. So why do so many international volunteer programs fail to make an impact? Why do some do more harm than good?
About Us
International volunteering has grown in popularity, and with so many people going abroad to “serve”, we worry that we are often forgetting a really important step: we have to learn before we can help. If we don’t research our options thoroughly, understand the context and culture of the communities we visit, and ensure that our skills and experience match the needs, volunteering can be wasteful, and at worst, cause a lot of harm.
We are promoting a movement of learning, designed to better prepare young people about to travel abroad for the first time, and travellers of all ages looking to give back through their time, with the skills and mindsets they need to be of “service”, not just for a few weeks on a volunteer trip, but for the rest of their lives.
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From Our Blog
Mental Health and Traveling During a Pandemic
This is a guest post by current gap year traveler Ella Clute. It forms part of our blog series “A New Age of Travel: How to Navigate Travel in a Changing World” which supports our #TravelReset movement. These times of chaos and uncertainty have made us more aware than...
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Ethical Travel in a Post-Pandemic World
This is a guest post by current gap year traveler Ella Clute. It forms part of our blog series "A New Age of Travel: How to Navigate Travel in a Changing World" which supports our #TravelReset movement. The ethics of travel are a long debated topic, even more so in...
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Is There an Ethical Alternative to Volunteer Tourism?
This is a guest post by Craig Vandermeer from Insight Global Education about his journey through volunteer tourism towards an ethical alternative. At the start of the millennium, volunteer tourism was arguably an insignificant part of the global hospitality industry...
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