Gap year volunteering abroad

[thesandwich]

A friends ds is looking at volunteering abroad for a few months during his gap year- any reccomendations of good organisations? And ones to avoid? Thanks

DD went with Projects Abroad. Good organisation before she went and 'on the ground' whilst away. She would recommend.

We use www.volunteervacations.co.uk

Thank you!!

Projects abroad is great as is ICS- the international version of NCS (the challenge) there is a charity, Rxxx Dcxx, I wouldn't recommend.

Does he have any specific, useful skills that are not likely to be readily available in the local economy where he wants to volunteer? If not, chances are he will be doing more harm than good.

This is a very well written article matadornetwork.com/change/why-you-shouldnt-participate-in-voluntourism/

Between causing attachment disorder in orphanage children (and you only have to visit the MN adoption board to see how utterly devastating that is, for life) through to taking jobs from skilled locals, it's a minefield.

If he's your average 18/19 year old (nothing wrong with that!), then I'd suggest that he could still have just as much of a good time and actually achieve a positive impact in the way he no doubt aspires to by
a) working in the UK for a while to earn money
b) doing some volunteering in the UK, in his spare time, where his grunt work is actually useful
c) using the money he has earned to go travelling and see the world as he presumably wants to
d) these voluntourism projects often have enormous profit margins. Either (i) take those profit margins and plough them into more weeks spent travelling, or (ii) take the extra cost of voluntourism (over and above what he'd normally spend on a week in said country) and donate it to a reputable NGO that will use that money efficiently to do actual good - Oxfam, Red Cross, or even something a little more unusual like The Brooke.

Thanks for that interesting perspective - food for thought.