Short Term Volunteers
Since the early 1990s a large percentage of volunteers abroad have been short term (less than 3 months) volunteers. In many cases, the organizations and communities which host the volunteers have found they can be more of a burden than a help.
Short term volunteers do not have the time necessary to help the community as a individual: not staying long enough to learn of the community’s problems, culture, and sometimes even language.
The result is that short term volunteers need to have guidance and leadership in order to best direct their energy. This guidance comes in the form of special organizations which host and support volunteers from abroad.
An organization acts as a middleman for volunteers and communities/causes, providing the former with arranged food and board, emotional support, orientations, flight information, and sometimes entertainment, all the while providing the later with able and willing bodies and brains. These organizations are funded by the fees they charge volunteers.
Without these middle men, volunteers have to independently find projects, housing, and local transportation before even buying a plane ticket. This can and has been done by independent volunteers, but is takes more time, energy and in some cases money than using a middle-man organization
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natmanu
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