Volunteer abroad

Thinking about volunteering abroad?

It is possible to combine volunteering with travelling abroad and it can be a really rewarding and beneficial experience. There are lots of companies that organise and run experiences like this but it is worth bearing in mind that there can be a fee which is sometimes quite substantial.

Opportunities abroad involve more factors; such as travelling, accommodation requirements, transport, visa requirements so it becomes more complicated than volunteering in the UK.

A lot of opportunities are offered by either international organisations based abroad or UK organisations who work with local projects in various countries. Because of this, the Centre for Community volunteering are unable to look into individual projects and roles or promote them on our volunteering database. Therefore, we strongly suggest that you do some research to decide if volunteering abroad sounds right for you.

In order to inspire volunteers to consider volunteering abroad we will sometimes highlight opportunities that are sent to us through our e-news, NILE, Facebook and Twitter but again we would strongly advise you to research them properly before committing yourself.

Volunteering England offers some useful information and has produced an information sheet you can download.

Direct Gov also has helpful information to help you to decide if volunteering abroad is the right thing for you.

There's also some useful information about ethical volunteering available at www.ethicalvolunteering.org. Take a look at this is you are interested in international volunteering and want to make sure that what you do is of value to yourself and the people you work with.

If you are looking for information on travel, grants or bursaries the following links may be helpful: