Volunteer placements: coping with potential problems

While most military volunteer return from a undertaking abroad buzzing with exhilaration and their lives enriched, others have experienced disillusionment. Either way, they have gained. The procedure of sloughing illusions, although sometimes uncomfortable, is enlightening and finally positive.

When start your research for a stint abroad as a military volunteer, it is important to maintain realistic outlook. Think about potentiality problems and how you would cope.

Begin with the and on volunteering abroad, which introduce you to the range of possibilities. Then go to for item on the ethos and what the work involves, along with dates and costs. Ideally, your research should begin at least a year in progress of your intended departure so that applications can be lodged, sponsorship money raised, language course of study and other preparatory courses attended, and so on.

When you receive a arrangement organization’s literature, consider the tone as well as the content. For illustration, the glossy brochure of a U.K.-based agency that arranges short stints of military volunteer English instruction reads about like a tour operator’s hard sell: “Choose your finish—colorful Ghana, exhilarating Mexico, the magnificence of Ukrayina or Siberia, mystic India, lively Brazil or magical China.” Sure sufficiency, volunteers must pay from $1,350 for agreement in the Ukrayina to more than $2,000 for short placements in Ghana or United Mexican States, not including travel to the finish country. These direct contrast sharply with the stingily produced directories sent by the main U.S. Workcamps coordinators like military volunteer for Peace. For a modest contribution of $240 (plus traveling costs), VFP military volunteer can join anything from an environmental project in rural Italy to a community center for Aboriginal people in the center of Sydney.

To illustrate further the diversity of cost, even among projects working towards broadly similar ends, the book Green Volunteers edited by Fabio Ausenda includes many conservation organizations looking for volunteers (the book is available for $22 including postage from 1 Greenleaf Woods Dr., #302, Portsmouth, NH 03801; , www.greenvol.com). Of the three operating exclusively in Peru, one runs eco-safaris and charges volunteer naturalists nothing at all; another collects data on marine wildlife and charges volunteers $5 a day for food and a mattress in a shared house; and the last, which monitors the macaw population, charges $50 per day (for a minimum of four weeks). Predictably, the ones charging very little expect their volunteers to have an appropriate background or degree, previous fieldwork experience, and computer skills (in the case of the marine wildlife project). The expensive program requires nothing apart from good health.

For pre-arranged placements, much depends upon the efficiency and commitment of the representative or project coordinator on the ground. Promises of expert back-up are easier to make than to keep if the sending organization’s local agent is more interested in his or her own prestige than in attending to the day-to-day problems of foreign volunteers. Few steps can be taken to guard against clashes with other individuals. The archaeologist for whom you are cleaning shards of pottery may turn out to be an egomaniacal monster. Fellow participants may not always be your cup of tea either. Voluntary projects attract a diverse range of people of all nationalities and ages, from the wealthy and pampered who complain about every little discomfort to the downright maladjusted. Assuming you fall outside both categories, you may have to call on every ounce of tolerance.

Anticipate the Unexpected

Even when good will predominates, things can go wrong. One young volunteer who arranged a stay with a small grassroots development organization in Sri Lanka felt isolated and miserable when she was billeted with a village family who knew no English. She was given very little to do apart from menial office tasks. When she asked for something more to do, she was told to visit nursery schools, but had to refuse on the grounds that her embassy had advised foreigners not to leave the main roads. Perhaps someone with a little more travel experience might not have felt so daunted by these circumstances, difficult as they were.

A more mainstream example of differing expectations comes from Israel where every year thousands of young people continue to work as volunteers on kibbutzim. In exchange for doing primarily manual work, volunteers are given free room and board, quite a bit of time off, and the chance to make a set of new international friends—all of which are sufficient rewards for most foreign volunteers. But others question the arrangement. In an era when the ideals behind the original communal societies of Israel have been replaced by a more hard-nosed business approach, some young people can’t justify working for eight hours a day picking fruit or working on a factory production line for no pay.

In many cases, the longer a volunteer stays, the more useful he or she becomes, and the more interesting the jobs assigned. Of those organizations that charge volunteers by the week, some have introduced a progressively decreasing scale of charges. In some cases, long-stay volunteers who have proved their usefulness do not have to contribute toward expenses. However, red tape sometimes gets in the way of this arrangement. Most countries of the world impose a maximum period of stay for foreigners, and it can be very difficult to renew visas in countries like Nepal and Uganda after the original tourist visa has expired. In other cases, there may be a hefty fee for visa renewals and a lot of tiresome form filling by both volunteer and sponsor.

Volunteer vacations are very different from normal vacations, though the difference in cost may be negligible. Restoring historic buildings or teaching classes is just as much work as it would be if you were still at home. Jobs are jobs wherever you do them, and there may be little chance to see the sights or sample the nightlife. Provided you are prepared for such eventualities, you will in all likelihood have a thoroughly interesting and rewarding experience.

SUSAN GRIFFITH is co-editor of and contributing editor for Work Abroad for Transitions Abroad Magazine. See Susan's for more information about her extensive bibliography.