Realities vs expectations of International Volunteering

It can be really exciting getting ready for your volunteering experience. But with that excitement it can be easy to lose sight of what the reality will be when you actually arrive.

Here’s a few things that volunteers often face when it comes to volunteering abroad

Living In Luxury vs Basic Accommodation – Whether it be a shorter term workcamp or a long term placement there’s a high chance where you’ll be staying may not have the same standards as you’re used to. Whether that be slow internet, a smaller bed or sharing a room with other volunteers, all the way up to outdoor toilets and eating the same or similar food every day. The reality of where you’ll be living may be different to what your used to or expect. That’s not to say that if you don’t like something or don’t feel comfortable that you shouldn’t talk about it, just that you go into your placement with an open mind and try your best.

Structured working vs flexible working schedules – It’s great to know what you’ll be doing every day that you’ll be at your placement. You’ve read the info sheet for your volunteering placement have think you have an idea of what each day will look like, some people really love routine and find comfort in that. How structured you’re placement will be is really dependent on where you go and what the placement is. Often schedules and what you’ll be doing may change at short notice. For example, you were meant to travel to a local project to help repair a path, but the transport to take you there has broken down. Your project leader will have to be flexible and try to find some alternative work for you and your fellow volunteers to do. It can be frustrating but sometimes there are things that are just outside of our control and we should try to be understanding.

Immediate Impact vs Gradual Long-term Change – We all want to see the fruits of our labour. You’ve worked hard at your volunteering placement and it feels great to see the improvement that your work has made for the communities and people you’ve been working with and helping. But sometimes 2 weeks or a month isn’t long enough to complete a project and you may feel like your work hasn’t contributed to much difference. It can be easy to get disheartened by this, but remember that regardless of how much change you can see, any contribution that you have made has moved that project forward. It’s also not always possible to see just how your work fits into the bigger picture of the project, taking a step back and seeing things as a whole you can begin to appreciate just how valuable your time and effort has been to making change for the community that there placement or project is.

What are your expectations from your volunteering placement? How do you imagine your placement will be, what will accommodation be like? What do you think the food will be like? Access the padlet and share your thoughts