Travel and Volunteering: Finding Opportunities - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats.
If you are looking to do International Volunteering on your travels, there are number of ways to research programmes and find something that fits you. I think probably the most obvious place first of all is the internet. You can easily find many many different companies insights. They have information about volunteering.
One that I actually view is called Idealist.org. And its very simple, you just go in and put in the country that you are traveling to and maybe something that interests you such as medicine, teaching, working with kids, they will bring back the whole list of results that you can choose from and, you know, research further basically.
Another thing you can do though, and this is what I actually prefer to do, is the best advice you can get is from people that you know. So I will put out there on facebook, on my twitter accounts, etc. and start asking around and, you know, see if anyone knows volunteering programme in Nepal. And pretty soon people are really helpful about it, you would be amazed. And pretty soon you are going to have all kinds of options available to you where people just give you either places that they have worked with before or things that they have heard of.
Another great way is to like contact the expat community. Lots of expats are actually very involved in volunteering and working with volunteer organizations in their city. So if you can connect with some expats either through social media or some other way, they are great people to ask. They really know their country and there city best.
The other thing, you know, I would do is maybe if you find a company that you really like their programmes, maybe I will choose a programme and then I might decide where to go based on that. So, you know, just kind of it depends on how flexible you can be, but there are lots of options out there and using social media, and the internet is probably the best way to find out.
