Blog

This is a guest post from Jonathan Brown, a high school teacher in the UK. I was a teenager in England in the early 2000s. At that time I saw opportunities to volunteer abroad being advertised in schools, but I had little desire to do it myself. Most of my friends...

This is a guest post by human rights campaigner Meg Lewis. Earlier this month an orphanage tourism taskforce was launched in the UK by ABTA and Hope and Homes for Children. The taskforce aims to halt the trend of well-meaning international tourists from visiting and...

I sat near the window, sipping coffee and observing the workers outside as they loaded all of the luggage onto the plane. I watched intently as a young man in an orange vest heaved my two overweight suitcases onto the conveyor belt. My eyes followed those big, blue...

I walked into my first class and saw a room full of girls whose appearances closely resembled mine; dark hair, brown skin, and deep, energetic eyes. I sat down at a table with some of them and didn’t say a word. I noticed their eyes wandering around the room,...

This is a guest post from Rishi Bhandari, a Nepali who grew up surrounded by international volunteers. For Part One of this post, see here.   Most of my work is with international students who come to Nepal, and the first thing I say to them is: “Please do not make...

This is a guest post from Rishi Bhandari, a Nepali who grew up surrounded by international volunteers.   I had a bit of an unconventional childhood. I was born in the western hills of Nepal to a wonderful family, but who were seriously lacking resources. They moved to...

Paying to volunteer can seem like a contradiction in terms. After all, you are already offering your time for free and covering your expenses. Some people assume that to pay to volunteer is just blatant commercialization, and free volunteering is better, but this...

This is a guest post by Liz Tuck, reflecting on her own long career in the volunteer travel sector.   Eleven years ago today I was readying myself to fly to Tanzania to spend a month teaching English in an island secondary school. Looking back, the thought process...

Throughout your volunteer experience, you have the chance to determine to what degree you will integrate yourself into the local culture and to what degree the local culture will become a part of you. Though many volunteers live in luxury relative to local people,...