GoMad Nomad Travel Mag » volunteering

Ask GoMad Nomad: Little money, still want to travel

admin — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 09:01:26 +0000

Dear GoMad Nomad:

I’m low on cash but still want to travel, what should I do? Go into further debt and live life in the moment, or do the prudent thing and save up my money?

-Broke In Brooklyn

Dear Broke in Brooklyn:

My first advice is to get the heck out of Brooklyn! You’ll save up more money living in the sticks. But, yeah, yeah, I know you want to be at the epicenter of Hipsterdom.

Anyhow, to answer your question: Don’t go into debt! But…you can still travel on very limited funds. The options are limitless.

Since you don’t have money, I’m assuming you have time. You can spend that extra time that you normally spend nursing PBRs on Bedford Ave, researching and planning out your travel.

First thing you’ll have to understand about cheap/budget travel is that it happens very slowly. You’ll have to opt for the pueblo bus over the bullet train; and if you’re going to hitch, you’ll have a lot of time to perfect your hacky sack skills while waiting for your free rides. So I’d reserve anywhere from two months to a year for this expedition.

If you just happen to have graduated from college and don’t know what to do, check out this fantastic post over at Almost Fearless.

Since you have the time, I would highly recommend volunteering, “helping,” working, and temporarily residing in the places you plan on visiting. This will allow you to actually experience the place and get to know the people you have traveled so far to visit.

Volunteering

This one is tricky. You want to avoid paying a fee to volunteer. I don’t mind helping others, but I don’t like to have to pay for that privilege, and neither should you. Check out these awesome articles for low-cost or free volunteering opportunities in Nepal, the West Bank, and Spain. Transitions Abroad Magazine is also an incredible resource for volunteering abroad info.

Help Exchange

Before I started teaching English in Madrid, I almost took a gig helping an English couple in Brittany restore an old train station into a B & B. I would have helped them for four hours a day and they would have fed me and given me a room in their home. The rest of the day I could spend working on my writing projects with the help of their wireless internet. I used Help Exchange to connect with these people in need of a helper. But the dream was never realized.

Working

Get to the Caribbean or cross the Atlantic while working aboard a yacht. Skippers in ports far and wide are always looking for a crew that preferably speaks their language and may or may not have sailing experience. Good sites to connect skippers and crew: Crewfinders, Yacht Crew Register, or Dovaston Crew.

Temporarily Residing

A great option is house sitting. I kind of want to make a career out of this, except it doesn’t pay very well. Why not take care of the perritos and water Señora Torres’ garden for the month August while she’s vacationing at her other home on the Canaries? You’ll probably need a good reference before strangers will entrust you with their home and animals. Use Mind My House, House Careers, or House Sit World.

So if you combine a little traveling in between some of these ideas, you’ll have a well-rounded trip. Use couchsurfing for accommodation read up on hitchhiking before you leave.

-Stephen

Volunteering in Spain with Vaughan Town and Pueblo Ingles

admin — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:15:01 +0000

Two Programs that Offer English-Speaking Volunteers Full Room and Board

By Stephen Bugno

An evening of jamon and vino tinto at Pueblo Ingles

I’m almost as exhausted as they are, but somehow they keep going. This is supposed to be easy for me, right? English is my native language.

They sun is about to set in our small “English Village” but the Spaniards stay positive, excited, and focused despite the long day. We are far from the urban expanse of Madrid, four hours by bus in the sparsely populated region of Extremadura. We are a group of English speakers volunteering at Pueblo Ingles for a week.

Free Room and Board for Speaking English?

That’s right. At either Pueblo Ingles or Vaughan Town, (two different companies that run similar English immersion programs for Spaniards) volunteering as an Anglo-speaker gets you a free week in rural Spain. But it’s much more than that. It’s a great opportunity to meet and form close relationships with Spanish people in a surprisingly short period of time.

It’s also a great way to extend your travels, add something different to your usual holiday, or just save some money on your expensive European vacation. But most of all, it’s an opportunity to do something out of the ordinary in our modern age of fast-paced living and working and just sit down and have a conversation. Well…have lots of conversations, actually.

The Model

in the village of La Alberca

So here’s the concept: pair about 20 Spaniards with 20 native English speakers in a village in rural Spain. Live together, eat together, and speak together about 14 hours a day. It’s exhausting, yes, but universal agreement in the success among the much-improved English of the Spaniards and the satisfaction of happily enriched Anglos.

The core of the program is the one-to-one sessions. During these 50-minute blocks, pairs have the opportunity to stretch past simple and superficial chats. You can sit and drink coffee or go for slow walks. After only five full days, it’s remarkable how open and close everyone becomes, not only with the Spaniards, but even with the other English speakers which come from a diverse range of countries including the U.K., Ireland, Canada, the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand just to name a few.

Besides the one-to-ones, pairs sometimes join up to form groups of four to discuss issues or solve mock problems. In addition, an hour a day is devoted to various entertainments. There’s even a special program one of the nights.

Requirements for Volunteers

Spaniards at Pueblo Ingles

Basically, Anglo volunteers need to be native speakers and have enough life experiences to keep them talking for up to 14 hours per day. They must also pledge that not a word of Spanish will be spoken by them the entire week; a promise that is taken seriously. An English-only environment is crucial to the success of the program.

Volunteers are offered a nice, private room and three meals a day in a beautiful rural setting in the Spanish countryside. Volunteers are required to take care of their own travel expenses to and from Spain and for accommodation before and after the program. Pueblo Ingles runs a seven-day course and Vaughan Town a five-day.

For More Information

Further information and applications can be found and filled out on-line at the VaughanTown or Pueblo Ingles websites. Programs run year round but most are available from June to September.

Stephen Bugno attended both Pueblo Ingles and Vaughn Town in the summer of 2008 and remained in Spain for another nine months teaching English. For more than a decade he has worked, volunteered, and traveled his way around the world. He blogs at BohemianTraveler.com

Volunteer in the West Bank

admin — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:52:32 +0000

By Stephen Bugno

An American nurse volunteer and a Palestinian woman

There is no better way to experience Palestinian culture and get an inside look at life under the Israeli occupation then to go to the West Bank as a volunteer. I was in the midst of a six-month Istanbul to Cairo overland trip when I got an invitation to stay for a month. I couldn’t say no. The warmth and hospitality of the Palestinian people made it an easy choice for me.

It’s important to try to make contact with any of Palestinian NGOs in your home country before leaving. Talk to anyone who has been there. They may be able to guide you into the best program. After you arrive, you may want to change organizations based on your preferences and what skills you bring. But Project Hope is a good place to start.

Project Hope

At Project Hope, volunteers are able to carry out a diverse range of projects. I taught English to university-level students, but there are plenty of opportunities to go into the refugee camps to teach children not only English, but French as well. International volunteers come from Canada, the U.S., the U.K., France, and there were even two Norwegians there with us. About half-way through my month stay, two nurses from New York came to lead CPR and basic health seminars in the outlying villages. Others conducted art, music, or drama projects. Social justice and human rights is another sphere that is welcomed as well as workshops in photography or circus.

Project Hope is an established local NGO in Nablus with connections to almost all other NGOs in town and the rest of the West Bank. This allows you to offer your skills to reach the specific groups that would be most in need. Project Hope is managed by Palestinians who raise their own funds and engage local community members who volunteer to assist the international volunteers. They also offer free Arabic language classes to help your immersion into life in Nablus.

Project Hope is a volunteer driven organization and because of their limited funding, ask volunteers to donate $100 towards materials and equipment. 500 NIS per month (US $135) per month is requested for accommodation costs which include a shared room in a secure house. The time commitment for volunteering is at least one month, preferably three months, unless you have a specific project that lasts a lesser amount of time. Living expenses in the West Bank are low: about $5 per day should be enough to cover food and transportation. Contact: projecthope@projecthope.ps for more information.

Freedom Theatre

The Freedom Theatre is a great place to volunteer for projects in the arts: performance photography and videography. Located in Jenin, in the north of the West Bank, The Freedom Theatre uses the arts as a model for social change. It is currently developing the only professional venue for theater and arts in the north of the occupied Palestinian Territories. The aim of this project is to empower and give voice to the children of Jenin Refugee Camp through a unique program of workshops and activities in theater, supporting arts and multi-media: ranging in their emphasis from largely therapeutic and healing, to the presentation of high-quality artistic products.

The Freedom Theatre welcomes volunteers who can contribute their expertise in theater and other art forms by presenting short, intensive workshops, or by joining them for a longer period, or by providing professional advice within your field. If you are an Arabic speaker, your help is particularly valuable.

They welcome volunteers who have professional skills mainly within the following fields: theater and drama, multi-media, music, fundraising, leadership and management, design, computers and IT. Contact them if you have any other skills you would like to share.

Freedom Theatre offers board and lodging to their volunteers. If you are interested or have any questions, contact: info@thefreedomtheatre.org

Alrowwad

Alrowwad, initiator of the “Beautiful Non-violent Resistance”, is an independent, dynamic, community-based not-for-profit organization which strives to empower children and women by targeting behaviour, knowledge, concepts and practices through beautiful and non-violent means. It is a center for artistic, cultural, and theater training for children in Aida Camp of Bethlehem trying to provide a safe and healthy environment to help creativity and discharge of stress in the war conditions they are forced to live in.

Alrowwad welcomes volunteers with experience in artistic fields such as theater, photography and video, arts, puppetry, set design, costume design, and graphic design.

Other fields of interest are languages, health and environment, public health awareness, and administrative work. Possible projects include English/French teaching and editing, science museum design, sports for girls and women, recycling and environmental awareness, fundraising, grant writing, and organizing artistic tours with new potential partners and funders.

Alrowwad is exclusively organized and run by Palestinians in the West Bank city of Bethlehem for the Aida Refugee Camp. Email: alrowwadtheatre@gmail.com Or contact the director Abdelfattah Abusrour at: aabusrour2@gmail.com

Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel

Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) provides an international presence in places where Israeli Jews and Palestinians live in close proximity by bringing internationals to the West Bank to experience life under occupation. Volunteers called Ecumenical Accompaniers (EAs) provide protective presence to vulnerable communities, monitor and report human rights abuses and support Palestinians and Israelis working together for peace. When they return home, many EAs campaign for a just and peaceful resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict through an end to the occupation, respect for international law and implementation of UN resolutions.

Volunteers are organized through church organizations in the volunteer’s home country. Visit Become an Ecumenical Accompanier for your home country’s application and requirements. US EAs are responsible for their own expenses, including roundtrip travel to Jerusalem via Washington, DC. The cost of the EAPPI program is $5,100 for a minimum 3-month term. Contact: eappi@wcc-coe.org for more information.

International Solidarity Movement

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles. Founded in 2001, ISM aims to support and strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance by providing the Palestinian people with international protection and a voice with which to nonviolently resist an overwhelming military occupation force.

International volunteers provide protection for Palestinians engaged in nonviolent resistance, an accurate message to the mainstream media, and act as personal witnesses for transmitting information back home, while providing hope for Palestinians.

The ISM is not an organization, but rather a movement which all organizations, groups and/or individuals who agree to their principles can join. Volunteers who join the ISM are responsible for paying their own way and covering all their expenses in Palestine. All volunteers attend a two-day training program where they will learn about the history of nonviolence in the Palestinian resistance and the role internationals have played over the last several years.

The Effect of the Occupation on Volunteers

Volunteering in the West Bank gives you the opportunity to get a first-hand view of the occupation and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You may soon become emotionally engaged and even disheartened when you, as most volunteers, grow more and more pessimistic about the situation moving toward a peaceful solution. While you’re there, it’s important to take opportunities to visit Israel proper and talk to Israeli Jews to give yourself the most balanced perspective of the conflict as a whole.

Educating folks back home on the reality of the situation and the injustices you witnessed may prove to be more beneficial in the long run than anything you could hope to accomplish while in the West Bank.

Is it Safe in the West Bank?

One concern I had before committing to volunteer in Nablus is the safety. As the center of Palestinian resistance, nighttime incursions by the Israeli military in Nablus are not uncommon. I fell asleep to gunfire a few of the nights. But because the missions are targeting militants in the refugee camps or old city, the violence wasn’t a threat to us in the Project Hope house, located in a safe part of town. Each organization can advise you on the safety in their locale.

Entering Israel

Israeli border control is notoriously tough. Since they are occupying the West Bank, they control movement in and out with strict checkpoints. When entering Israel, be it from Ben Gurion Airport or the Allenby Bridge border crossing (from Jordan) you’re likely to get rigorous questioning, searches and perhaps delays of a few hours. It’s important to have travel plans since they will ask you specific questions about your time in Israel. However, you can’t mention anything about volunteering in the West Bank or risk being denied entry. If the authorities allow you in, you’ll most likely be given a free three-month visa.

Stephen Bugno volunteered in the West Bank in November of 2007, stopping for a month on a six-month Middle East journey from Istanbul to Cairo. His writing has appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Seattle Times, and Transitions Abroad magazine. He blogs at: Blog of a Modern Nomad

West Bank Slide Show

admin — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:45:58 +0000

Gangkharka village, Nepal Slide Show

admin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:36:44 +0000

Read the article: Volunteer in a Himalayan Village

Volunteer in a Himalayan Village in Nepal

admin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:09:16 +0000

click photo for a Nepal and VEC slide show

By Beau Miller

Volunteering in the Himalayas has never been more accessible, affordable, or important.

“As dew is dried by the morning sun,

So are mankind’s sins at the sight of the Himalayas.”

- The Puranas

In this world there are mountain people and there are beach people. This one is for the mountain people and for the mountain people who don’t know they’re mountain people. There aren’t a lot of chances to live in an honest-to-God Himalayan village these days. Here’s one: Village Environment Community Gangkharka (VEC), a small NGO with a long name.

Based out of Gangkharka village in Helambu, Nepal, this organization has ten years experience performing healthcare and education projects, as well as sustainable development and heritage preservation. Helambu is a neglected region of Nepal, and VEC is the only NGO working in the area. While much of Nepal’s aid money goes to the Everest region, Helambu twiddles its thumbs. Or at least it has until now.

VEC built a school in Gangkharka last year, in the face of an exodus from Himalayan villages. Its president, Dorjee Netup Sherpa, a former trekking guide, has committed himself to the development of his home region. His commitment shows from the very moment he meets you at the airport in Kathmandu.

photo credit: Anna Tomasdottir

Where is it?

Helambu is located about fifty miles north of Nepal’s capital city, Kathmandu. But it takes about ten hours to get there on the windy mountain roads—four-and-a-half by jeep or bus, and the rest on foot. Perched on a Himalayan mountainside is Gangkharka, a tiny village whose extinction in the near future might have been guaranteed if it weren’t for VEC. Now it’s the site of a boarding school with 108 students, ages 4-15, and a full faculty and staff, including a Buddhist lama who teaches the students Tibetan and meditation.

Distressed by the lack of jobs in Kathmandu and unwilling to go abroad, many families originally from the Helambu area are now returning to Gangkharka and nearby Bangdang village, encouraged by VEC’s progress.

Volunteering

Volunteers with VEC can fill any number of roles in Gangkharka, and they can do so without the costly program fees of volunteering with many other organizations in Nepal. For about three dollars a day, volunteers are set up with a host family close to their volunteer placement. They are given Sherpa or Nepali language lessons to help ease communication, and they have the opportunity to leave a very tangible and positive contribution to the lives of the Helambu Sherpa, Tamang, and Yolmo populations.

Volunteers can choose between teaching at the Pasang Memorial Community Boarding School, Gangkharka’s first and only boarding school, working on the village’s organic farm, or serving as a member of a team of medical volunteers. Opportunities abound. Any number of projects could be going on during a volunteer’s stay. VEC currently has funding proposals being reviewed for a new addition at the school as well as for the micro-hydroelectricity installation.

The organization is also working on creating athletic fields for the students at the school, so coaching may also be a possibility. Another project VEC is working on is the Helambu Histories project. Teams of volunteers and VEC staff, as well as some students from the boarding school will be interviewing elders in several Helambu villages to talk about their life experiences. The goal is to gather folk stories and the unique perspectives of Helambu people on crucial events in the region’s history, such as the Chinese invasion of Tibet and the increased contact with the West.

Upon arrival in Nepal, volunteers are met at the airport by Dorjee or a VEC staff member. Housing is coordinated prior to arrival, and a VEC volunteer has the chance to unload and rest before receiving an in-country briefing with VEC staff. Then, early one morning on an agreed upon date, the volunteer(s) and a guide make the trip to Gangkharka. The trek to Gangkharka is not terribly strenuous, but it is recommended that volunteers be in reasonably good physical shape. Gangkharka’s altitude is lower than that of Denver, Colorado, but it is possible to go as high as 14,000 ft. if one takes advantage of the discounted trekking available to long-term volunteers.

There is currently no internet in Gangkharka, but volunteers schedule guided trips to Kathmandu and relative civilization. There is a landline phone at the school where calls can be received, but otherwise volunteers may find themselves without many of the 21^st century comforts they are used to. There are bathing facilities available, if one considers a small shack with a big pot of heated water a bathing facility.

Why Volunteer Here

In Gangkharka, a volunteer’s time is rewarded with spectacular views of the Himalayas and a unique opportunity to live in a community renowned for its hospitality. What little the host families have, they share. Sitting inside a tidy, if more than a little smoky, Sherpa home, there will be plenty of opportunities to acquire a taste for the butter tea for which Himalayan communities are (in)famous. Few people on earth can make a stranger feel more at home than the people of Gangkharka—though a volunteer may find life more difficult to bear during the summer monsoon season.

The development work conducted by VEC may be a last ditch effort to preserve Helambu communities like Gangkharka. The culture is facing its greatest crisis as many parents pursue job opportunities overseas, leaving their children in the care of boarding schools often much less keen to the idea of cultural preservation than the school run by VEC. Instead of the colorful pullover jumpers, smart little ties, and shiny black loafers that constitute many school uniforms in Nepal these days, the students in Gangkharka where traditional Himalayan dress: chubhas for girls and Tibetan-style tunics for the boys.

The potential for sustainable development gives Gangkharka an advantage to ensure this can happen, and international volunteers have the opportunity to contribute to its revitalization and the preservation of a culture that has long captured the imagination of the West.

If You Go:

Website: www.vec.org.np

Recruiter/FAQs: vecvolunteers@gmail.com

There’s a $75 processing fee for VEC (airport pickup, guide, housing coordination, language lessons, etc.). The $3 a day goes directly to the host family.

Beau Miller is a Master’s candidate at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs. He has worked as a volunteer Project Manager for VEC, and his writing has appeared in The New Brewer and Adbusters.