Yes, I know – November’s a long way off, and you’ve only just read Dianne’s report about this month’s social meeting near Hemel Hempstead … But we also know that everyone’s diaries seem to get busier all the time, so we wanted to give you early notification in the hope that many of you will be able to come along to our volunteers’ social meeting here at ‘head office’ (aka Kate’s home!) in November. The usual 1-5 p.m format –…
If you have told us that you would like to be put in touch with other people and places volunteers who live not too far away from you, you should by now have received a contact list of email addresses for volunteers in your area. We have always encouraged a new volunteer on a particular project to make contact with others who have volunteered there before as a good way of getting to know about that project. However, meeting with other…
It’s 10 years since we placed our first volunteer! There’s a “curse” that many erroneously believe is Chinese – “May you live in interesting times.” There is a wonderful Xhosa word – “Ubuntu” – which has no direct translation into English but portrays the qualities of humanity and compassion – ‘I am because you are’. Well, boy-oh-boy, have the last 10 years been interesting times for people and places – successes to celebrate and challenges to overcome – boy,…
Written by Dianne, people and places volunteer programme advisor “I am writing this report sitting by the pool at Safari Garden Hotel on a sunny Sunday morning. The sky is blue and the temperature will rise to about 30 degrees later on today, so I hope those of you in cold rainy England are feeling jealous!
There’s been a lot of discussion recently about the value – or not – of review sites. Some are fantastic and the reviews are genuine – with lots of useful information about the realities of volunteer travel – and these are the sites we encourage our volunteers to write reviews for. These are our favourite sites … so far … you may know of others where reviews are genuine and trustworthy. Please let us know of any you like and…
Great news – our colleagues at Volunteer Forever have launched an easy and secure way for you to raise funds on-line for your next volunteer experience! Many volunteers have raised funds, and continue to do so, when they return home after their placements – which is hugely appreciated, of course. But future volunteers can now invite friends, family and colleagues to help support their work by donating to the costs of the trip! How good is that? One of our volunteers, about to…
I listened to a short radio article yesterday on the BBC 4 consumer programme ‘You and Yours‘ – it’s about 40 minutes in. It was very disappointing. A young medical student called Savannah recounted a disturbing story about “a large sending organisation” that had placed her in poor accommodation and at a challenging project with no support – I think the interview was about 4 minutes. It did nothing but sensationalise – it was prurient in its sensationalisation of what sounded…
A few hours ago I was notified that someone had posted a topic with the above title on the people and places group on linked in At first I thought the video was a spoof – to my horror it wasn’t – take a look at the video here if you don’t the rest of this post will be pretty meaningless. My first reaction was to “out” the profoundly disturbing video on all the social networks I’m on – as an…
There has been much criticism of volunteer travel – and “voluntourism” recently. (Where and how the two differ and the confusion caused by the subjective use of the two terms is fodder for a whole other post – I must do that one day soon!) We at people and places are leading much of that criticism – I like to think that we campaign by demonstrating good practise and highlighting bad practise…. but I am concerned that we may be…
Some musings by Sallie as published by Volunteer Forever -( a great site for info and fundraising for your volunteer trip. and how clever is the graphic!) This is my take on the most common mistakes made BEFORE, DURING and AFTER volunteering. I want to precurse by stating clearly that I believe the vast majority of people who volunteer are doing so with the best of intentions. Our work at people and places brings us into contact with some pretty blooming marvelous people – some…