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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
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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How I Hire Volunteers
This is the final part in our blog series from Naomi Shafer. In this post she talks about how she uses the lessons she has learned from her previous experience of volunteering (shared in parts one and two on this blog) to run the Clowns Without Borders international...
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“I Made Tea and Felt Lost”: Volunteering for a Job Creation Program in Rwanda
This is the second in a series of guest posts by Naomi Shafer from Clowns Without Borders. I grew up in a small, rural town (okay, it’s a village of 300), and have always been interested in international work. Before my parents moved to Vermont, both had worked and...
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