Volunteer Work for the Traveler

Pictures of starving children get donations.

Road Junky asked me to write an article on voluntary work based on my experience as a volunteer in Rwanda. Much of this article relates to volunteering in the context of developing countries but bear in mind that there are plenty of volunteering opportunities in your home country; these won’t require any nasty vaccinations or having to live in 40 degree Celsius heat and will be just as rewarding. I have started a directory of organisations involved in voluntary work. I hope in the future others will add to the list, which is intended to be only brief summary to give a quick overview of various volunteer work.

I appear to have spent much longer on why not to become a volunteer, I hope it does not appear overly negative. My volunteer experience has been a very positive one, despite some decidedly rocky periods in the early days. For volunteer types one and two (_paying and unpaid volunteers_), you probably can just throw yourself in at the deep end and have a great time but in my experience the third, more formal and long term voluntary work has quite an impact on your career, finances, health, patience levels and sanity! In short, it needs to be given some consideration.

NEXT: Types of Volunteering