Voluntourism

The phenomenon known as voluntourism, or volunteer vacationing, is a wonderful way to expose youth to different cultures, customs and help them give back to a community or cause in need.

It introduces participants to a destination and it makes the destination real in a very tangible sense, according to Voluntourism.org, by combining the best of travel and tourism arts, culture, geography, heritage sites, the natural environment, and recreation with the opportunity to serve and enhance the destination its people, places, and things. Participants become part of the community as they help it, meeting locals and learning their stories. The important thing for voluntourist groups is to be engaged in the task.

The key to voluntourism is to create a trip that the group will care about and will be of service to the organization they help so that they feel a sense of accomplishment and have fun while doing it.

Here is a sample of volunteer opportunities that will hopefully spark your imagination.

1. Volunteer at a soup kitchen in New York City. Come prepared with canned and boxed food and help pass these out. Then visit the site of the Twin Towers and the Ground Zero Museum Workshop to learn about what others have done in our countrys time of great crisis.

2. Beautification projects are popular because of the relative lack of experience needed for the various jobs. Your group can plant flowers or trees, clean trails, or paint park benches (and donate the supplies to the organization).

3. Arts Projects. For groups that are artistically inclined, they can create and execute a mural for a neighborhood with underprivileged youths. Then arrange for a meet and greet with the local community center to get to know the areas children and interact with them.

4. If your group wants to volunteer for hurricane cleanup but does not have very much time to do it, there are short-term projects. One ongoing project is the Saint Bernard Recovery Project, sponsored by Habitat for Humanity. Groups can volunteer for as little as six days in the most badly damaged area of Louisiana. This project requires 2,000 volunteers through as early as May of this year, if not longer, and trains all participants for different aspects of clean up in the area.

5. Volunteer at a beach picking up trash, then spend the rest of the day enjoying the water. By combining fun in the sun with an important project such as this, oceans and lakes both can benefit from these projects.

If your organization is undertaking their own volunteer project, engage your group in the process of planning the trip and get a feel for what they believe is most important. If you are joining a larger voluntourism effort, spell out exactly what the group will be doing-good and bad–and what they can expect so that there are no surprises. If they will be cruising the ocean on a conservation trip to help sea turtles, do not leave out the part about rough seas and that they are not sailing on the Love Boat. Meeting the needs and expectations of the group is key to a successful project and, ultimately, to learn and grow from the effort.

Story by Kelley Thompson

Coutesy: GroupTravelblog

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