Volunteering - Where to Start?
When I tell people that I spent six weeks volunteering at a rural boarding school in Uganda, many people say things like “wow, what an amazing thing to do” or “I’ve always wanted to do something like that” or “it sounds amazing but how do you do it?” and then they want to know practical things like how I found it and how the volunteering scheme worked.
When I started out with the idea of volunteering this year I didn't really know where to start, and I figure there may be others in the same boat so I wanted to share a bit of my journey so that others may be able to benefit from my experience. If there are people reading this that think they might like to do some volunteering in the future, then I truly hope that some of my insight may be beneficial in more people taking these steps and making it happen.
Volunteering at KAASO Primary School in Uganda was without a doubt one of the best things I’ve done in my life. I have established a life-long relationship with a project I truly believe in, and I will certainly be back there one day. It has also inspired me to give more time in the future, and a desire to get to know other projects that are also doing great things in other parts of the world.
Since I have a lot to say on this topic (!!) I am going to publish this content in three parts over the next week or so in an effort to make it a bit more digestible...
1) Where to Start?
2) My Story
3) How Can We Help?
So, here are my tips on where to start…
Types of Organisations
The first thing to be aware of is that there are different types of volunteering, and “voluntourism” is definitely a thing!!! Some people go with a voluntourism program for a week or two in order to tick the box of volunteering, to help with wildlife conservation or experience how less fortunate people live and try to help them out. These programs generally endeavour to provide a certain level of comfort, service and logistical coordination. They will generally include some or all of the following – airport transfers, a local guide/coordinator, weekend trips to tourist attractions, more comfortable accommodations and better quality food than what the local staff of the project would receive.
Some volunteers-to-be will turn up their noses at this sort of program and say they want something more grass roots, more authentic, more real! But there is certainly a market for this type of trip, and you pay higher fees for a package which includes the overheads of the company organizing the overall experience for you. I don’t necessarily think these sorts of programs are bad, as long as those participating have a realistic view of what they are doing. They are essentially participating in a type of package tourism that focuses on wildlife conservation or community projects and volunteering your holiday time to help make a difference in these projects. I think this can be an especially cool type of family holiday if parents want to introduce their children to the idea of volunteering but they want to do so in a more controlled environment, with someone else to take care of the logistics and make sure it will be a positive experience for all.
In another category, there are medium-to-large-sized international organisations that have a more robust infrastructure and are set up to receive volunteers on a regular basis. These ones will generally not only expect you to cover your own travel costs and living expenses while you are there, but their fees will also have to cover the overheads of their staff that coordinate the volunteers. Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing if you are looking for a more structured program and some type of guarantee as to what you can expect from your volunteer experience, but you will pay for this added “sense of security”. This can be a good way to get your first volunteering experience under your belt, and you will most likely have other volunteers there to share it with.
There are also many smaller organisations that are used to receiving volunteers and they do so with varying levels of professionalism and organisation! And then there are those that are not used to receiving volunteers and furthermore, don’t necessarily have a good idea of how to best utilise their volunteers once they are there.
If you’re looking for your first volunteer experience and don’t want to pay through the roof for the privilege of helping out, I believe that the ideal scenario is a small organisation that is still grass roots enough not to have to cover the cost of an entire volunteer coordination team, but has enough structure in place to ensure you will feel safe, cared for and most importantly, that you are investing your time wisely! Or the other option is to go with an organisation that has no volunteer structure, and be happy to go with the flow, or even better, help them set up a program to attract more volunteers in future! This would surely be beneficial to many small organisations that are struggling along with their hearts in the right places, but lacking the organisational skills and knowledge to tap into the international volunteer market.
The caveat that applies to all of these different types and sizes of organisations is that there will always be some that are operating more (or less) ethically than others. This is not always an easy thing to judge, but when you are doing your research and once you arrive onsite, I would encourage you to be aware of the real intentions of the organisations and whether they are administering their projects in an honest and ethical manner. It’s easy for them to talk-the-talk on their websites, but the real test is whether they walk-the-walk in the daily administration of the project and if they have a genuine belief in and dedication to the cause they are supporting.
Defining your Time Commitment
Another thing to think about is how much time you want (or are able) to commit. Many volunteer programs don’t accept volunteers for less than three months, or six months, or some even 12 months and I can see their reasons – especially if your role would require building relationships and trust with people that have been through negative life experiences. It takes an organisation time to train new volunteers, and this investment in your training is not necessarily worth their time if you are only planning to stay for a short time. When I decided to volunteer for six weeks, I felt this was not much time at all in the scheme of helping to make long-term change, but it had to be better than nothing! Many people reading this will think that even six weeks seems like a very long time and they couldn’t afford even that… time availability and length of commitment is definitely different for everyone.
The good news is that there are still plenty of organisations that accept volunteers on a shorter term basis, you just need to find them. In this scenario, the best ones are the ones that have a well-defined long term vision, and they know (or are learning!) how to align their volunteers to this vision, so that even the short time you are spending there will be well spent and you will be making a meaningful contribution to their overall goals.
If you are thinking, for example, that you want to volunteer for three months, then you have to think about how you want to divide this time i.e. spending one month in three different projects (maybe even three different countries/continents), six weeks in two different projects or biting the bullet and dedicating three months to one project. When I first started talking to the Volunteer Coordinator at KAASO, she told me that in her experience, it was really only after six weeks that she felt she had found her feet in the volunteer position. In my experience, I felt like I definitely took at least four weeks – and this was probably accelerated since I wanted to make sure it happened before the six week mark when I was due to leave!!
You definitely need to take some time at the beginning to get to know the people, their daily routines, their culture, their challenges, their strengths and their weaknesses. Through observation and immersion, you start to understand what makes these people tick and where their challenges lie. Then you find yourself wanting to help them find solutions, but you realise that the “solutions” that we may try to offer from our Western point of view may not always apply to your new environment, or have the same impact that they do in the Western world. So you spend your time processing your learnings in your new environment, reflecting on how we do things in the West and trying to reconcile all of this into a solution to help these people! This process takes time and I think that one project would benefit from having you there for three months, more than three projects would benefit having you there for one month each.
However, don’t forget that you also have to think about what you are looking to get out of the experience (it is a two way exchange after all!) and there would be lots of benefits of splitting your time across multiple projects, especially if want to get a breadth of experience across different organisations, issues, countries, cultures, etc. There is no right or wrong answer, you just have to do what you feel is right for you. And remember this may not be the only time you take time out of your normal life to volunteer (trust me, you may get addicted)! So if it’s your first time, you may opt for splitting your time across multiple projects to get a feeling for how different organisations do things, and what causes you are truly passionate about. You may find that you develop a special bond with the people, or cause, of one of your projects and then decide to go back at a later date to spend more time at that project, once you have developed a level of trust and belief in what they are doing.
Identifying your Cause
There are so many people and organisations throughout the world fighting for causes that they believe in, far too many to list here. I don’t believe there is one formula for identifying your cause, or even that you can only support one cause, you can support multiple!!! I do think that it’s worth getting out there and coming into contact with multiple causes, and through your search, I believe you will stumble across the cause(s) that tug at your heart strings and motivate you to figure out how you can make your personal contribution to making a difference in that area.
More to Come
It may surprise you to hear that I still have more to say on this subject (!!) so in upcoming posts I will share my own personal story of how I came to decide where to volunteer, and some more ideas on how we can help both on-the-ground and from afar.
