International Volunteer HQ [IVHQ]

I actually didn't start out looking for ways to either volunteer or to get abroad. It was while job searching my senior year of college when I was getting slightly depressed thinking about sitting at a desk in an office all day every day that on a whim I started looking up opportunities working with animals (my true passion). I came across a volunteer program that advertised saving baby sea turtles in Costa Rica. Having never been out of the country by myself before, but thinking it sounded like the perfect fix to my sudden onset of turning-into-an-adult-anxiety, I decided to go for it! My plan was to get it out of my system so that I could happily settle into my professional career once I got home. That completely backfired, obviously, and my trip only ignited a newfound burning need to continue to travel as much as I can!

What inspired you to travel abroad?

Sustainability is fundamentally about balance. It’s about behaving in ways that enable a diverse range of stakeholders to succeed and flourish in the long-term. There are many elements to sustainable volunteering, but some of the aspects for a volunteer to consider include how transparent an organization is in terms of how they identify the projects they support, especially in relation to projects that involve children, the extent to which volunteers will be trained and supported to work with local people in a responsible way, and the ability of an organization to demonstrate the long term impact that their projects have had on supporting genuine community or environmental needs.

It was the end of my HSC and I was bitten by the travel bug. Cambodia was a place theoretically close to my heart, but I had never been there. I empathized deeply with the extreme poverty and corruption that existed there. That is what ultimately pushed me to apply.