Experiencing
life while volunteering to build peace
By Lisa Saremel
How does the idea of teaching English to children in Thailand while experiencing the hill tribe culture sound? Or helping to build a school in Kenya? Perhaps helping to paint a monastery while studying herbal medicine in Kathmandu is more your style.
These are just a few of the many possible short-term projects people
can undertake in up to 50 different countries through International volunteering
bodies.
Jade Herriman joined an International Volunteers for Peace (IVP) project helping to save endangered sea turtles on the West Coast of Mexico in 2003. For three weeks, she helped patrol the beach and relocate turtle eggs at risk of being poached and sold on the black market.
"I'd always wanted to do volunteer work but I didn't feel ready to go away for a year. What really appealed to me about IVP was that it's not that long a time," Jade says.
After relocating the turtle eggs to a secure nest, Jade's team dug these nests up after a few weeks to record how successfully the turtles had hatched.
"One night I saw a turtle come ashore," she recalls, "I stood about half a metre away from her while she finished burying her nest. That was incredible, quite a magical experience. They're quite big and slow, and very dignified, there's just a look about them that takes your breath away."
Jade says camping in the heat with sand flies was a challenge at times,
but she feels very lucky to have gone. "It was really interesting
working with people from all around the world," she says, "I
did feel like we contributed something."
The IVP experience helped inspire Jade to make another trip overseas and she is now studying International Urban and Environmental Management.
The UN's World Volunteer Web recently reported the increase of people volunteering overseas while on holidays - or taking a 'volunteering vacation' and a UK Direct Line Travel Insurance report found that an estimated 6 million people in the UK have quit their jobs to travel around the world in recent years. The most common way of spending this free time is through a combination of volunteer work, learning a new skill – such as a language – and independent travel.
IVP provides work camps each year in all parts of the world, from Asia to Africa, Canada and the US, Latin America and Russia as well as many countries within Europe. Work camps involve small groups of volunteers from around the globe helping a community with a project, normally for between two to four weeks. After paying a small membership fee, volunteers can apply to participate in the work camps of their choice.
Similar volunteer agencies that enable people to volunteer in developing countries include Australian Volunteers International and independent aid agencies such as Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).
Rita Warleigh is IVP's Chief Executive Officer. "There's a wide range of projects, from building toilets in Bangladesh to helping in an Aboriginal school in Australia. We had a lot of volunteers who went and helped after the tsunami, in Sri-Lanka and Thailand. We've also had volunteers working in a refugee centre in Africa."
Rita
recently returned from a project at an Aboriginal school in Townsville
where volunteers came from Spain, Korea and Melbourne.
"The volunteers get a lot out of it," she says, "they get the cultural exposure, they make friends from all around the world, they learn a lot about the local issues."
Volunteers need to be prepared for the work of the project involved, which may involve a lot of physical work in some cases. Because of the extra challenges involved in working in less developed countries, volunteers for work camps in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America are required to be at least 21 years old and need to meet other special conditions. Some work camps may require language skills.
For all other IVP projects, however, all you need is "to be over 18, and enthusiastic," says Rita. There is no upper age limit – those in their 60's have joined volunteer teams. There are a range of fields covered in the hundreds of work camps offered each year, including anti-racism and peace work, environmental projects, working with the socially disadvantaged and in arts and culture.
Generally the cost of a work camp, between $250 and $350 initially, includes meals, basic accommodation, and any skills training or study attached to the project. Volunteers arrange their own travel to the work camp.
The benefits of an IVP experience can carry on well after a trip has finished. Many volunteers, says Rita Warleigh, "are often very motivated, they realise that they can make a difference and become more active in their lives, as far as taking action for things they believe in.
"Some people really change the direction of their lives. A lot of people say it's the greatest experience they've ever had."
For more information on International Volunteers for Peace you can visit their website, email them at info@ivp.org.au or call (02) 9699 1129.
Read Postcard with Purpose about an IVP project in Thailand with a difference.
The
Centre for Volunteering [ABN 28 002 416 024]
Level 2, 228 Pitt Street, Sydney NSW 2000
Ph 02 9261 3600 | Fax 02 9261 4033 | info@volunteering.com.au