will produce the best results: arranging your placement before leaving home, while you’re
en route or once you reach your destination?
Arranging the Placement from Home or In Situ
Whether you choose to make arrangements for your placement before you leave home or
in situ may depend upon your personal decision-making style; and specifically whether
you prefer to be spontaneous or to be organised in advance. It may also depend upon the
time limitations of your travel plans.
Jenny Smith chose to sort out her sea-turtle placement once she arrived in Costa Rica:
I had found out about it and contacted the organisation beforehand but it wasn’t finalised
until I got there.
In contrast, Jason Rogers, a volunteer in Thailand and Laos, chose to arrange all the details
prior to leaving home:
Each volunteer trip was the main reason for my travels and was set up ahead of time.
Of course, there is one type of independent volunteering that doesn’t involve a decision about
whether to be organised in advance or not – emergency relief following a disaster. In Eoin
Canny’s case, volunteering post-tsunami on Koh Phi Phi with the NGO HI Phi Phi was an
on-the-spot decision when he arrived on the Thai island and saw a sign requesting volunteers:
Giving help at the place of need, directly to the people that need it, regardless of the time,
effort or work involved, can be an immensely satisfying experience.
The boxed text below is a first-hand account of one man’s experience of impromptu
emergency relief following a disaster. (See also p146, for Paul Piaia’s account of working
as an emergency volunteer in Pakistan following a major earthquake.)
Research Sources
Regardless of which approach to planning you adopt, matching your skills and philoso-
phies with an appropriate organisation requires time and effort. You may be lucky and
chance upon an opening when chatting to a contact at home or a local once abroad; how-
ever, a word-of-mouth lead should not be taken as a guarantee of an approriate placement.
Most people who set up their placement before arriving in-country use a variety of infor-
mation channels, including personal networking, websites, online directories and forums,
guidebooks and volunteering fairs. Amanda Guest-Collins, who volunteered in Bolivia,
browsed the internet and guidebooks for ideas:
I found the site http://www.volunteersouthamerica.net very useful, plus postings on Lonely
Planet’s ThornTree. I also looked at several entries in their GAP Year Book and South
America on a Shoestring guidebook.
Clodagh Mullen, who volunteered with the Camino Seguro in Guatemala (p230), surfed
the net and used her contacts:
After an exhaustive internet search, I met a girl at my college who had been volunteering
in Guatemala for six years.Your Personal Network
Who do you know that may be able to suggest organisations to volunteer with? What
other contacts do you have that may know of opportunities? Don’t just limit this to your
immediate circle of friends, family and colleagues. Ask them to spread the word among
their social and work networks too. Victoria Jaberi found her role in administration and
translation work for Hampy in Peru (p228) through networking:
A friend of mine worked for Hope. So I contacted him and the president of Hope. Both
told me they didn’t have any research placements at that time, but their friends introduced
me to other people who had projects as well.
It is likely that organisations in your home country working in areas that interest you will
have foreign connections. If you are keen to volunteer in a school or contribute to com-
munity projects, it’s worth talking to schools at home that may have links with foreign
communities. This method worked for Joan Hodkinson, who volunteered in India:
I spoke to people who had worked in schools in India to get contacts and ideas.Surfing the Web
Although the internet seems like the obvious place to look for inspiration, it is only in the
last few years that independent volunteering opportunities have really become visible,
thanks to the creation of several online directories dedicated to listing local charities and
grass-roots NGOs which accept volunteers directly (see the list of directories on p225).
The advantage of these online directories is that you can search for organisations by
continent, country or type of work in just a few clicks. Some of the directories rely solely
on recommendations from travellers, whereas others will check out the credentials of each
listed organisation, either by visiting or by sending an in-depth questionnaire about how
they work with volunteers. All directories will suggest that you use them as a starting point
for your research but that you should seek other opinions, and contact organisations and
past volunteers directly.
For a small fee, some directories offer a matching service, whereby you submit your
interests and skills and are sent a list of appropriate DIY vacancies. Another great way to
learn about opportunities is to review chat-room postings, which not only tell you about
organisations and how to approach them but also discuss the benefits and pitfalls of volun-
teering without an intermediary organisation.
If you’ve already narrowed down your country preferences, national tourism websites can
provide information and useful links for a good range of volunteering vacancies. Another
avenue is to type ‘NGOs in country x’ into a search engine – this will bring up NGOs that
may accept volunteers directly. For example, a search for ‘NGOs in Cambodia’ will bring
up http://www.ccc-cambodia.org, an NGO member organisation which promotes information
exchange and NGO coordination in Cambodia.In October 2005, Guatemala was hit by Tropical Storm Stan and in a few days hundreds of
people were killed in landslides and floods. I was studying Spanish in Antigua when the
call went out for volunteers to help in Jocotenango, a suburb of Antigua which had been
engulfed by mud when the local river burst its banks. I bought a pair of Wellington boots and
took the bus to Jocotenango, which was a very sad sight, as the streets had been filled a
metre deep with mud, and the people’s ruined possessions were piled outside their houses. I
joined the (mainly German and British) volunteers from Antigua’s language schools in digging
trenches to allow the dirty water to drain away. There seemed to be little organisation, but one
afternoon it was decided we should build a dam to divert the water away from the houses.
The dam was made of fertiliser bags filled with earth – each weighing about 30 kilos – and
hundreds were needed, so it was very hard work. What was really impressive was how we
organised ourselves into a team to build a substantial structure in a short space of time,
and the next day I was pleased to see that our dam still stood. By then the army had arrived
in force and were using machinery to clear the streets, so the volunteers helped clean out
houses. On Monday it was back to school, with sore hands but with a sense of satisfaction in
having done something to help.
Graham WilliamsUnexpected Volunteering
08: Do-It-Yourself Volunteer Placements:The Search Begins