Blog

This is a guest post by Lindsay Clark, about her experience of volunteering in Fiji and what she learned in the aftermath.   Yes, but I’m not a bible-thumper out to save the children… Yes, but I was invited back to Fiji and welcomed by the elders… Yes, but we asked...

Today's guest post comes from Kenzie Yoshimura, reflecting on how travel companies need to pay attention to the way they market volunteer or work opportunities abroad.   It can be challenging and often confusing to sift through the many options, organizations, and...

Sixteen-year-old Daniel Ma went on a trip to Cambodia this spring break, armed with the Learning Service book and guided by our own author Claire! Here are a few of the things that he learned:   As a child, volunteering was always a prominent part of my life, and yet...

Kempie Blythe works in the field of international experiential education and transformative learning. In this post, she explores the ways in which looking at experiences abroad through a transformative lens can help better understand and facilitate the learning...

This is a guest post from Ruth Powell from Comhlámh, an Irish network that advises and supports hundreds of volunteers and hosting organisations that are based in Ireland.   Every year more than 2000 people volunteer from Ireland to other countries around the world....

Last week we posted a blog entitled 5 Things an Effective International Volunteer Does. A few people got back to us and pointed out that “being effective” is not just about choosing the actions and behavior to increase our impact, but also about avoiding actions and...

Volunteering abroad is often portrayed as something anyone with a big heart and bit of time on their hands can get involved in. However volunteering effectively – that is, having the intended impact on a cause and avoiding any negative impacts – is tricky. In fact, no...

This is a guest post from Lena Papadopoulos about the mistakes she has made in the past and how Learning Service helped.   As a teenager and young adult, I hoped to “save the world,” and I had many romanticized notions about how I could do so. After completing my...

In our book, Learning Service: The Essential Guide to Volunteer Travel, we discuss the many pitfalls of volunteer travel that lead to tokenistic impact or downright harm. We are frequently asked how these pitfalls persist, being repeated by countless volunteers...