I’m seeing more and more local organizations – non-governmental organizations (NGOs), charities, schools – in developing countries posting on sites like Reddit, asking foreign volunteers to travel to their countries and volunteer. These NGOs and others offer no information on whether or not its legal for foreigners to come to the country and volunteer, no information on what they will do to ensure volunteers will be safe, no information on what screening they do of volunteers to ensure safety of volunteers – they just post, “Hey, we help orphans / wildlife / women, and you can come here and help us.”

It’s troubling.

The reality is that it is not ethical nor appropriate for any NGO to recruit foreign volunteers unless they are already involving LOCAL volunteers and have the full endorsement of local people for the work they do, and it is inappropriate for them to recruit foreign volunteers unless they have complete information on assignments, safety, screening, quality control and more.

That said, some NGOs have a legitimate need for foreign volunteers, and this page on my web site is meant to help.

Hosting International Volunteers: A Where-To-Start Guide For Local Organizations provides detailed suggestions for NGOs in developing countries interested in gaining access to foreign volunteers. This is a “getting started” guide, NOT a comprehensive guide: it’s impossible within the boundaries of a simple web page to detail all an organization needs to do to host volunteers from other countries.

Also see:

• Basic Fundraising for Small NGOs/Civil Society in the Developing World
• More Than Me scandal in Liberia: a lesson to all who “just want to help”
• Isn’t my good heart & desire enough to help abroad?
• Vanity Volunteering: all about the volunteer
• In defense of skills over passion
• Want to work internationally? Get involved locally.
• Is it really *impossible* to break into humanitarian work?
• Volunteers themselves speaking out about voluntourism
• J.K. Rowling speaks out against orphan tourism
• Medical Voluntourism Can Cause Serious Harm
• The harm of orphanage voluntourism (& wildlife voluntourism as well)

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