Whether a vacation is the more traditional escape from everyday life, or an adventure pitching in to help those in need, they both need a considerable amount of planning. While your typical travel agent can easily handle the former, it usually takes special organizations to set up the latter. One of a few such organizations is i-to-i, a volunteer travel organization. Founded in 1994, the company places approximately 2,500 travelers in volunteer projects per year, and the numbers are growing.
Volunteer vacation or sabbatical-like packages can vary in length from one week to six months or longer. While most volunteers are university-age, projects are open to everyone aged 18 to 80 and can include teaching English, conservation, health, construction, care work, and even media internships at newspapers or radio and television stations. Destinations cover 23 countries worldwide, from China to Croatia, to Brazil, Kenya, and Australia.
Kathy Hamlin, a sophomore psychology major at Amherst College, spent two weeks tending and protecting endangered leatherback turtle nests on a Costa Rican beach. "Usually we would patrol the beaches at night, in four-hour shifts, either from 8 pm to 12 am or from 12 am to 4 am," said Hamlin. "Because the beach was so eroded, the shore wasn't wide enough for the turtles to lay their eggs in safe places a lot of the times. So, at night we'd look for turtles that had come ashore to nest and lay eggs. We'd put bags under the turtles and collect the eggs and run them over to the hatchery."
The hatchery, said Kathy, was a protected area further up the beach. At night, hatchery workers pulled six-hour shifts. A beach patrol volunteer would collect the 70 to 100 eggs, measure the nest, and then take both to the hatchery. The hatchery volunteer would then try to dig a nest of identical dimensions and deposit the eggs in the protected nest. The project met her expectations and then some. "I wanted to do something meaningful with my time," said Kathy. "But at the same time, I figured I could get a lot out of it as well."
Selvi Sriranganathan, a senior at The College of William and Mary was able to make her two-week volunteer project in India a reality. "I always wanted to go to India. My family went to India that same summer I did the i-to-i Escape. But I wanted to do something more than just buy a plane ticket."
Selvi and another i-to-i volunteer worked at the Cheshire House, a residence for disabled women and girls located in Bangalor in south central India. The residence was home to about 15 women and 20 girls whose conditions centered around walking disabilities. Usually, they either had leg braces, crutches, or got around in wheel chairs. "We lived in a little flat actually on the grounds of the home itself," explained Selvi. "We'd go down and have breakfast with them in their cafeteria. There were two girls studying for their SFLC, a test you have to pass in order to graduate the Indian equivalent of high school. They needed to pass that test to get a decent job. So, we'd help them in the morning and then sometimes we'd go into the workshop where the women worked on arts and crafts that could be sold in stores. We'd go in there and learn things from them actually, like embroidery. They were real experts at it."Volunteer programs through i-to-i are available year-round, and many students work with their advisors to obtain college credit. To help defray the costs of an international volunteer experience, a large percentage of volunteers conduct fundraising to cover most, if not all, of their trip. In the end, what's critical is the collective impact of thousands of volunteers working on vital projects around the world. Finally, more and more of those volunteers are coming from America, and they are discovering the true personal rewards of going beyond a traditional vacation.
i-to-i offers over 400 volunteer programs in 23 countries worldwide. Projects range from 1 to 24 weeks. More info? Contact i-To-i at (800) 985-4864 or online at www.i-to-i.com. |
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