Volunteering Abroad

Parent Cafe
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<p>My DD is graduating in May and will possibly be taking a gap year before grad school. She’s interested in a long-term volunteer experience overseas with no specific destination in mind yet. A quick search so far leads mostly to the ones you pay to participate in. Anyone have any first-hand knowledge these, such as Proworld? Or have any other ideas? Thanks!</p>

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<p>Another way to go if your DD is looking for language fluency, she could try being an Au Pair. DD needed a language for grad school and did the au pair thing for 4 months, she was invited for a year, but felt it was not going to help her enough more that she wanted to stay 8 more months. She did connect another college friend with the family, that girl has been there a couple of months and is planning to stay the year.</p>

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<p>Does she have any language skills? I am a big fan of Safe Passage in Guatemala. </p>

<p>[Welcome</a> | Safe Passage](<a href=“http://www.safepassage.org/]Welcome”>http://www.safepassage.org/)</p>

<p>I have volunteered with them, and so have many people I know, both adults and children. (The founder came from our area and the US HQ is here, so there are strong local connections.)</p>

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<p>mini is involved with [Friendly</a> Water for the World](<a href=“http://www.friendlywaterfortheworld.com/]Friendly”>http://www.friendlywaterfortheworld.com/) & [LAFTI[/url</a>], in Tamil Nadu , India ( which is where my daughter ended up)</p>

<p>I am looking at getting training in the biosand filters, because I would love to do something like PeaceCorps but I don’t have a college degree ( I do have construction skills however)</p>

<p>My D found that some countries were much less expensive to travel in.
There are programs like [url=&lt;a href=“http://www.leapnow.org/]LEAPNOW”&gt;http://www.leapnow.org/]LEAPNOW</a>](<a href=“http://www.lafti.net/]LAFTI[/url”>http://www.lafti.net/) & [CIEE</a> - work, travel, study and exchange programs for students…](<a href=“http://www.ciee.org/]CIEE”>http://www.ciee.org/)</p>

<p>What she did after high school was find a program through [Volunteer</a> Abroad with Projects Abroad](<a href=“http://www.projects-abroad.org/]Volunteer”>http://www.projects-abroad.org/)</p>