Does volunteering abroad improve your CV?

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Bit off topic but it's easy to set a volunteering placement up on your own- the £500 just goes to 'administration costs' for some gap year company and the type of volunteering you'd do in those kinds of situations might not necessarily be the best option if you actually want to do good in country.

I don't know if you're thinking of going to Peru or it was just an example, but http://www.volunteersouthamerica.net/ has lots of free volunteering placements which you organise directly with the charity. I saved my friend £500 by recommending her that site last year.

I'm not a HR person and literally have no idea what runs through the strang breed's minds. But I would imagine volunteering abroad would be useful in demonstrating initivative as a compentency. Also if it's relevent to what you want to do as a career it might help, and you can take 'transferable skills' from anything. Although I have quite a lot of volunteering experience and it hasn't helped me in my job hunt so far... :frown:

Thank you for that link, definitely interested in it and Peru.

However, I would assume that with such projects, accommodation and food isn't included. When you include these, surely the difference between going with a 'free' project and 'organised' project is only a couple of hundred pounds. I wonder if for peace of mind, it's worth it?

Reply 21

Voyager_2002

Original post by Free.Help

Since trying to find a paid job clearly isn't working, I thought I'd save the little bit I have to do some volunteer work abroad to help me in the job market/give me a break from this economy.

Thing is, I earn very little so I can manage to save about £600 in 3 months. Is this enough to volunteer for min. 1 month? I don't care where I go, but I want to volunteer with street kids/women/justice/democracy that sort of thing, as that's the sort of job I want here in the UK.

I figure that won't even cover flights to Africa/Asia/Middle East so I'm probably looking at Europe, but I can't seem to find any cheap volunteering :confused:

Do you think £600 is enough to go abroad for 1-3 months or not?

Any chance that you could raise £800?

There is a programme that is mainly funded by the tax-payer (DfID0 but volunteers have to raise 800 pounds themselves (five per cent of the cost of the average placement). It is for people aged 18-25 and I think is called ICS. Several agencies participate in this programme: Operation Raleigh; VSO, and others. The one whose work most closely matches your interests is in York and is called International Service. They offer three-month placements in West Africa, Bolivia and Palestine: does that tempt you?

Reply 22

deadwing

Original post by James941

No because you're still paying loads for British based administrators. The costs of paying for food and accomodation isn't likely to ammount to loads, especially in a poor country like Peru where you can lots of soles for your £££s.

In terms of peace of mind... I went to Spain a few fews ago to work as an au pair. I can't remember what the company I went with was called, but basically I paid £350 for it (not including flights or anything). They gave me an address and off I went. I did end up having a problem with my host family, and after a month I left. There was in country support, which was a locally based agency which matched up au pairs to families. And it turned out that the Spanish agency who dealt with me took on au pairs who approached it directly for free (and presumably charged families for their services)... so basically I paid £350 for an address and nothing more. If I had researched au pairing in Spain myself and found that agency, I would have had exactly the same support. When I was living in Buenos Aires I heard similar stories of volunteers working side by side- some of whom had found the placement through an agency which charged them lots of money- and others who had approached the charity directly and didn't pay anything. So I'm not convinced that paying loads of money a British based gap year company necessarily results in better support if something goes wrong.

I know it's scary going to another country on your own, especially a third world one, but I think sorting it out yourself is still worth it. If you're worried about it maybe do a bit of internet sleuthing to see if you can find people who have volunteered at the charity. I think the website I posted above has a recommendation feature. Alternatively you could email the hostel you're staying at on arrival in the country and ask them if they have reccomendations of places you could volunteer.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 23

CompassEgyesület

I'd really recommend looking up the European Voluntary Service. You can see some info about in on the British council website (http://www.britishcouncil.org/society/youth-in-action/faqs-european-voluntary-service-evs). If you 18-30 years old and live in the UK you can apply to go on EVS to a European country to volunteer for 2-12 months, and the EU will pay for food, accommodation, pocket money and 90% travel. I'm not sure how much longer this offer is going to last, though, given the general state of economies in Europe!

But for example, I'm currently in Hungary on an EVS with an organisation called Compass Egyesulet (who are looking for another Brit volunteer at the moment actually :smile:

https://www.facebook.com/compass.egyesulet). I live with other volunteers who come from all over Europe, I help with language clubs, youth work, and community events, and I have the chance to live in Hungary for a year. Again, I'd really recommend having a look at EVS and the projects that are out there!

Does volunteering abroad improve your CV?

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