Organizations for Service Trips

[garceyues]

I have been thinking of going on a service trip next summer to assist in a poorer area.  While I am involved in many activities locally,  I feel as though this will be a humbling experience that will offer a lot of insight into how other areas of the world are.  I definitely do not want to pick a voluntourism type organization in which I spend most of my time loafing around rather than assisting the less fortunate.  Does anyone have any recommendations for organization that do this?   

[-D-]

I believe Habitat for Humanity is one of the more reputable NGO’s out there, though I have absolutely no experience in doing this sort of volunteering abroad (I did volunteer with Habitat locally many many years ago and it was a lot of fun and very rewarding. I even learned how to install drywall which has turned out to be quite useful).

https://www.habitat.org/volunteer/travel-and-build/global-village 

edit: I should add that Habitat had a very strong commitment to quality construction when I was volunteering. To the point that the site supervisor would either take people off of a job if they weren’t doing it well or not let them do it in the first place if he wasn’t confident it would be done right. I was lucky to be paired with an engineering student with prior construction experience who was able to teach me various things about home renovations and building.

[bearded frog]

Consider doing something in Canada/US to help vulnerable populations. Would be a much better experience and possibly something unique to talk about, and also get an idea of the issues facing the populations you will eventually be serving.

[garceyues]

2 hours ago, bearded frog said:

Consider doing something in Canada/US to help vulnerable populations. Would be a much better experience and possibly something unique to talk about, and also get an idea of the issues facing the populations you will eventually be serving.

This sounds like a good idea.  Any recommendations on how to approach this? 

[UWCC]

12 hours ago, garceyues said:

This sounds like a good idea.  Any recommendations on how to approach this? 

Depending on where you are located, your city/town may have opportunities to work/volunteer with people in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Maybe you could do some searching and see if your university or nearby organizations have a mentor program where you work with vulnerable groups. There are also some camp counselor positions/camps themselves I'm sure that are geared more to providing experiences for disadvantaged or at-risk youth.