Volunteering Abroad

I mentioned before that Derek and I enjoy volunteering when we travel abroad because it gives us the opportunity to learn about the people and culture of a country on a deeper level--as well as provide service. When we were in Brazil a couple of summers ago, we decided to spend half of our time exploring Sao Paulo and Florianopolis and the other half volunteering at an after school program for children living in impoverished neighborhoods. Traveling around Brazil was incredible, but spending time with the kids was one of our favorite parts of the trip. They didn't require much, they just wanted us to hang out with them which was a lot of fun for us. 

Finding an organization to volunteer with was pretty tricky. There are lots of options, but it was difficult to find one that was consistent with the 3 things we were looking for: (1) with kids, (2) short duration, and (3) not crazy expensive. That's right, some of these organizations charge you a pretty penny to volunteer with them. This is because many of them are booked through an agency which usually organizes your food and accommodations for more than it would probably cost if you did it yourself. It is also difficult to tell how much of that money is actually going back into the organization. Not to say that every place is trying to rip you off, but you do need to do your research.

Then there is also the issue of an organization actually being credible and safe. When we connected with the people at our volunteer organization (CI Brazil) we kept in touch with them through email. We asked them to refer us to someone who had volunteered with them before so that we could listen to their experience. We made plans for someone from the organization to pick us up from the airport in Florianopolis and, to be honest, we were not 100% sure someone would actually be there to pick us up! Thankfully, a friendly 20-something year old Brazilian man was waiting for us with a sign reading "Pando." Since we arrived on Easter weekend, he even welcomed us with a traditional Brazilian Easter egg (which is not an actual egg but a big, egg-shaped plastic container filled with chocolates)! Needless to say, we felt like we made a great decision with this organization.

For our upcoming trip we are hoping to volunteer at an orphanage in Cambodia. This process has been a lot more simple to plan because we know the people who run the organization so we don't have to worry about it being a scam or unsafe. We've heard Cambodian children are the sweetest and we are so excited to play with them! We are also planning to make a video of our experience for the orphanage, so stay tuned for that.