Volunteering on Vacation

I hope the fallowing helps.
I would check Youtube too see if RS has a video on volunteering in Europe, He has someone give talks about this subject but I do not know if they were ever filmed.
In the UK I would go onto the historic trust's website and see what they offer.
I would also go to the UN web site, www.un.org, and check out the different organizations policies on volunteering, like UNESNCO, WHO, UNfoundation.org etc.
I would also check the US state department to see if they have any info or resources.
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Do you belong to a church that is part of an international organization? They might be able to help you with ideas.
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Another way to find opportunities is to just Google volunteering in "____" country
Hope this gets you started
J

The National Trust in the UK is a good suggestion. Also try The Conservation Volunteers - tcv.org.uk/. They have a lot of environmental projects with a wide range of schedules. My dd and I did a week with them in 2009 when they were British Trust Conservation Volunteers. We helped rebuild a drystone wall outside Lincoln with about 8 other folks and had a great time. At that time they also had options outside the UK (including in the Adirondacks in New York, picking grapes in Italy, etc) but that may have gone away when they changed their name and refocused.

It's a really nice way to see a different aspect of the place you are visiting and also give back a little. Good luck!

Be very careful. In most countries volunteering is consider working and will violate your Schengen vise which prohibits any type of working. Wwoofing is absolutely illegal for Americans. Can you do it,? sure. Will you get caught? Probably not. Just recognize that there is potential risk if you do.

Since we volunteered in the UK which is not a Schengen country we did not worry about visa issues. You may need to check with the French. Italian and Greek embassies to see what the rules are for each country. The fact that you would be doing this for just a day or two may make it easier.

I think it would be easier for you to find one or two medium length volunteer opportunities instead of spreading out days here and there. If you volunteer just one day at each place, it might take you that long to learn the lay of the land and get some training, especially considering language barriers. Also, if you are working amongst people that work there regularly, they might not want to invest a lot of time in you if they know you are only going to be there one day. I know that sounds horrible and I think it is great that you want to spend time giving back. But logistically, it is difficult to figure out how to work in a volunteer for one day. Alternatively, if you pick a week to spend on a specific project in a specific location, you will get a lot more done.

Another idea to find opportunities- contact some American based universities and see if they have any ideas or on-going projects. I went to Loyola's campus in Rome and each semester there were a few projects in the surrounding community. They may have established relationships with local groups and would know about avoiding Schengen/work violations.

What is wwoofing?

chocalategirl, I don't doubt your good intentions, and please don't take what I'm going to write as any sort of personal attack.

One-day volunteering in a foreign country is, almost always, between useless or outright detrimental to whatever organization is behind it.

For voluntary work to be effective in any way for whatever/whomever its target are, there needs to be purpose, organization and some matter of efficiency. This is very hard to achieve with very short stints. Very short-term rotation is bad for activities involving other people, language barriers make that often impracticable and most of these one-day opportunities you'd find would be totally ineffective for anything but some 'fell good' mood on the part of the short-term volunteer, but not on anyone or anything else.

Just try to reverse your thinking a bit: suppose a foreigner with limited command of English were in your city and wanted to do some volunteer work for one day. What would this person do? Which social work would he/she engage with in a way that it would not disrupt it more than help it?

I can think just of a few instances: natural disaster assistance if you have specific skills, free artistic performances-for-charity if you can earn money (but you would need a proper visa), or some sort of lecturing/speech in some capacity (which would require previous coordination). You would disturb far more than help if you wanted to engage for one day in activities like farm work, senior housing assistance, park ranger duties or the likes, and most of these places would rightfully refuse untrained on-the-fly help.

Set your guilt aside, travel, enjoy your trip, and then, when you are back, engage in something meaningful in the place you live. That is my honest opinion, and, again, don't take that as a confrontation on my part, just an honest opinion from someone who has been living in Europe for a while.

Another consideration is that the venue may require a police check. At my workplace (public library) there are very limited oppportunities for volunteerism, but any volunteer that will be in the vicinity of children is required to have a police check/criminal record check. I would think that may be the case at in least some European countries.

Andre, can you confirm if you know anything about that?

Kristen, just goggle it and you will get lots of information.

Earthwatch offers volunteer opportunities in archeology and ecocogy in Italy, France (Pyrenees) and the UK. Most are a week or two, but there are shorter stays in the UK, helping on a dig of Roman ruins.

http://earthwatch.org/expeditions/expedition-search

Since this is research or study, I don't think you have to worry about a work visa as you would with wwoofing.

An interesting sidenote about volunteering in Europe in that a college friend from Germany was astounded at the number of volunteers and related hours here, while in Germany folks expect to be paid for such.

If you are interested in an extensive list of grassroots organizations the highly recommended CD Inexpensive Global Volunteering by Joyce Major covers hundreds of websites all over the world that offer volunteer programs in conservation, wildlife sanctuaries, teaching English, medical projects and many more topics; see www.inexpensiveglobalvolunteering.com.

Here are also two NYT articles: http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/travel/volunteer-tourism-for-travelers-on-a-budget.html?ref=travel and http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/travel/advice-for-travelers-who-want-to-volunteer-on-trips.html.

"Since we volunteered in the UK which is not a Schengen country we did not worry about visa issues."

Entry into the UK for USA citizens without a visa is for tourism / business visiting only and work paid or unpaid is not permitted. Specifically coming as a volunteer needs a Tier 5 (Temporary Worker - Charity Worker) visa, which requires a licensed sponsor. It is however possible to do up to 30 days incidental studying on tourist admission.

Marco, thanks for the information. I had no idea that we needed a visa, and BTCV [our host organization] never mentioned it either. I was thinking about doing something like that again with the National Trust, and will obviously have to be much more careful about the legal issues in future.

Andre makes an interesting point, too, about the value of really short-term volunteering. We were there for 6 days, but I can see that trying to jump into something for a single day would be more trouble than benefit to the host.

Good points Andre.

There have been people turned back at the border because they have indicated that they will at some stage be volunteering for something.

Volunteer organisations almost universally puts the responsibility of having the correct visa on the individual. This is distinct from paid employment when they are required to determine that their staff have the right to work.

To Europeans, volunteering is often a very strange idea. I work with an NGO and it surprised me the hoops that we had to jump through here to get volunteers into our office - not that there are really many offers. Basically, the government here looks at volunteering as taking away a paying job from an employable person. Even the idea of an internship here is strange. I should also note that in the US I was a volunteer coordinator at a non-profit for many years, so I have some basis for comparison. I also question a one-day volunteer stint - seems like that would be a real burden on the organization.

Over 10 million adults in England volunteer regularly at least once every month and a further 10 million or so volunteer at some time in a year. That is roughly 2 in 5.

Yes, volunteering is less common in Continental Europe than in UK, and overall lower yet than in US.

As for police/background checks, I'm not familiar with specific policies for volunteers. Overall, there is less of a culture of background-checking everyone than in US, though that is changing slowly. It doesn't mean they don't do it: some functions like teaching for children require special licenses that comprise a 'good behavior' certificate police gives you, and so on.

I don't know when you plan to do your traveling, but I was just on the Earthwatch website and found a one day volunteer opportunity in the UK.
http://earthwatch.org/expeditions/climate-change-in-wytham-woods

Hi, OP here.

Thank you to everyone for your answers. I didn't even consider Schengen issues. I think I've figured out what I'm going to do.

cg

Trip180 is also a great directory of volunteer travel opportunities around the world. https://www.trip180.com