Did you pay to volunteer abroad? Talk about your experience online!
17:52, 4 June 2010
.. Posted in Development, Relief and Advocacy Efforts.. Link
If you have ever paid to volunteer abroad, consider posting about your experience on Yelp, probably the most popular web site for customer reviews of businesses. Actually, you could use any of the web sites for customer reviews out there.
Some of the most frequently asked questions on online groups, such as YahooAnswers or The Thorn Tree, are regarding experiences with fee-based volunteering abroad programs. People ask, "Has anyone heard of such-and-such organization, and is it a good idea to use them to go to Africa to volunteer?" You could help others make the right choices by reviewing the company that sent you abroad, on Yelp or any other customer review site.
Finding organizations you can pay in order to participate in a short-term, feel good volunteering experience abroad is easy; finding out if they are credible is much harder. This situation will improve only if people who have paid to volunteer review the organizations they worked with in a public forum like Yelp, or on a blog of their own.
More on volunteering abroad.
And on a related note, I'll be presenting in Portland with Erin Barnhart of Idealist about volunteering abroad, including Voluntourism, for the Portland, Oregon hostels in just a few days!:
- Monday, June 7th, 7 p.m.
Hawthorne Hostel
3031 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Monday June 14th, 7 p.m.
Northwest Portland International Hostel & Guesthouse
425 NW 18th Avenue (& Glisan Street)
It will be fun! Really hope to see you there!
