What Makes You An Amazing International Volunteer?
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The trend of adding volunteer work to a travel expedition abroad has been seen pacing up in recent years. And, then there’s one set of enthusiastic travelers for whom the main purpose is to volunteer abroad for a meaningful cause while exploring the destination.
However, it is definitely not that easy to be such a dedicated volunteer traveler, as it asks for a lot of time, patience, dedication, and flexibility. Apart from these, there are a few more qualities that usually reflect from a staunch volunteer traveler. Volunteering Solutions, with its experience of witnessing several such volunteers over a period of almost 13 years, has figured out what it takes to be a dedicated volunteer traveler.
If you’ve been contemplating about volunteering abroad, then this list might help you to prepare yourself to be a better volunteer.
1. You know perfectly how to manage your time
Knowing what time of the year will be the best to travel to your choice of destination, making all necessary bookings and registrations well in advance, doing thorough research about the program as well as the destination, and preparing all necessary documents in time; you just simply know how to manage your time in the best way possible.
2. You understand very well the order of your priorities
Executing the program, shopping, eating, exploring the destination, and saving memories through clicks are all part of any volunteering sojourn. But, what comes first and what follows after, signifies your priority standards. Being available for the program, even after official working hours (if conditions require you to), always remain on top of your priority chart.
3. You are a hardcore people’s person
You know how to get along with people very well. Language and cultural differences are never an obstacle for you to kick into a meaningful conversation with a native. You understand the seriousness of what to say, to whom, and when.
4. When you are about to end your program, you are thinking of the next one already
Volunteer traveling is one of your regular activities, every year. The end of one expedition does not call for a break from it for you; rather it counts as the time when you start deciding on your next volunteering trip.
5. You carry forward your previous volunteering experiences
You are not akin to the term ‘failure’; it’s either good experience or good learning for you. If you sensed that something was not exactly perfect in your previous stint, you make sure to work and execute it in the best way possible, during your next trip. That is some hardcore dedication there!
6. You do not fear solo traveling…
… In fact, that’s what you prefer the most! You are the master of your own destiny, the king of your castle. You do not depend on a peer to tag along in order to take a volunteer abroad trip. Traveling solo is the way you like it the most, as it gives you that space you always need as well as helps you to be confident about your own moves.
7. You have the zeal to make a difference in the society
As a responsible human being, you understand the necessity of giving it back to society. If you feel that something needs to be improved and you can make a contribution to it, you would go lengths to do it.
8. You have the flexibility to make adjustments
Be it sharing rooms with other volunteers, living in adverse conditions with limited facilities, sustaining in remote areas, doing extra time at projects, or not getting your favorite sushi; you have the skills to adjust to any kind of conditions because what drives you the most is the dedication towards the program.
9. Patience is your biggest virtue
Teaching Program and Childcare project, at several destinations, are two of the most preferred volunteer programs with VolSol. While both these involve children, it takes a lot of patience to handle an entire classroom and/or the center.
10. Travelling is your breathing apparatus
This is the main propellant for your several sojourns. A traveler may or may not be a volunteer, but a volunteer is and always will be a traveler. It was your craving for traveling that cemented the idea of taking up volunteering work abroad in the first place; ‘coz there can’t be a better way to travel than to take up a volunteer traveling.
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