CURRENT MISSION

To provide volunteer opportunities to those who want to help and have a great time while doing it!

ABOUT ME

Volunteer Abroad is owned by the Canadian Federation of Students (a not-for-profit student organization founded in 1981 that currently unites more than 450, 000 colleges and students across Canada). As part of this student movement, Volunteer Abroad connects motivated people with not-for-profit organizations, communities and government agencies in need of assistance around the world.
We believe international volunteering promotes cross-cultural learning that helps create global awareness, understanding between cultures and provides the platform for positive change. Our volunteers have taught in schools, provided disaster relief support for the International Red Cross, conducted essential research to improve the management strategies of threatened environments, built homes for impoverished people, provided vocational training and programs for street kids and have worked in co-operation with hundreds of local organizations to distribute aid and improve the quality of life for people throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Participants come from all types of backgrounds. Students have integrated their volunteering efforts into their curriculum earning credits at their university, college or high school, while others have been professionals, gap year students or recent retirees looking to take some time off and offer their skills and knowledge to those who need it.

PHILOSOPHY

We provide real deserving programs for real volunteers who want to make a difference and help.

兴趣

Traveling, Gaining new experiences, music

• animals
• traveling
• music
• hiking
• backpacking
• hunting
• scuba diving
• track and field
• statistics
• volunteering
• beaches
• parks
• lakes
• mountains

音乐、电影和书籍

Hatari

我做过的一件不可思议的事情

The Tanzania Experience

Can any one mental snapshot encapsulate the Tanzanian experience? Thousands upon thousands of wildebeest that march in mindless unison on the annual migration through the Serengeti, perhaps? Or a family of elephants wading across the wide, muddy Rufiji/Tarangire River? What about a pride of well-fed lions sunbathing on the grassy floor of the majestic Ngorongoro Crater? Certainly, it is such images that tend to spring to mind when one thinks of Tanzania. And properly so!

Tanzania, truly, is a safari destination without peer. The statistics speak for themselves: an unparalleled one-quarter of its surface area has been set aside for conservation purposes, with the world-renowned Serengeti National Park and incomprehensibly vast Selous Game Reserve heading a rich mosaic of protected areas that collectively harbour an estimated 20 percent of Africa’s large mammal population.

And yet there is more to Tanzania than just safaris. There is Mount Kilimanjaro and Meru, respectively the highest and fifth-highest peaks on the continent. And Lakes Victoria, Tanganyika and Nyasa, the three largest freshwater bodies in Africa. Then, of course, there is the magical ‘spice island’ of Zanzibar, the highlight of a vast Indian Ocean coastline studded with postcard-perfect beaches, stunning offshore diving sites, and mysterious mediaeval ruins.

It doesn’t stop there.

Rising from the sandy shores of Lake Tanganyika, the forested Gombe Stream and Mahale Mountains National Parks vie with each other as the best place in the world to track wild chimpanzees. Closer to the coast, the isolated massifs of the underpublicised Eastern Arc Mountains have been dubbed the ‘African Galapagos’ in recognition of their wealth of endemic plants and animals. And Tanzania’s daunting natural variety is mirrored by a cultural diversity embracing 120 distinct tribes: from the iconic Maasai pastoralists of the Rift Valley, to the Arab-influenced Swahili of the coast, to the Hadzabe hunter-gatherers of Lake Eyasi.

So, how to define the experience offered by a country with highlights as unique and diverse as Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar, Lake Tanganyika, Serengeti and Selous? An experience that might for some entail long days hiking in sub-zero conditions on the upper slopes of Africa’s most alluring peaks; for others a once-in-a-lifetime safari followed by a sojourn on an idyllic Indian Ocean beach; for others still the thrill of eyeballing habituated chimpanzees, or diving in the spectacular offshore reefs around Mafia, or backpacking through the time-warped ports and crumbling ruins of the half-forgotten south coast?

Well, the one thing that does bind Tanzania’s diverse attractions is, of course, its people, who take justifiable pride in their deeply ingrained national mood of tolerance and peacefulness. Indeed, Tanzania, for all its ethnic diversity, is practically unique in Africa in having navigated a succession of modern political hurdles – the transformation from colonial dependency to independent nation, from socialist state to free-market economy, from mono-partyism to fully-fledged democracy - without ever experiencing sustained civil or ethnic unrest.

Tanzania has also, over the past 20 years, emerged from comparative obscurity to stand as one of Africa’s most dynamic and popular travel destinations: a land whose staggering natural variety is complemented by the innate hospitality of the people who live there.

How to define the Tanzanian experience? Surprisingly easy, really. It can be encapsulated in a single word, one that visitors will hear a dozen times daily, no matter where they travel in Tanzania, or how they go about it: the smiling, heartfelt Swahili greeting of “Karibu!” – Welcome!

教，学，和分享

The Volunteer Abroad program is based on the foundation that in order to truly make a positive difference with a short term placement, we need make certain that work is done in advance to ensure the placement is a good fit for the volunteer, and that the volunteer is adequately prepared for their placement.
One of the first steps in accomplishing this is our placement assessment process. Prior to placing a volunteer with any placement, our staff visits with the organization to fully understand the work being done, and conduct a placement assessment. Basically we are looking at two critical factors when beginning a new organizational partnership:

Is the organization addressing a real need in the community?
Could the contributions of a volunteer help the organization achieve their short and long term goals?
Once it has been determined that an organization is providing for a genuine need in the community, and that volunteer labour could be of assistance, we begin the next phase of the placement assessment process, which is the needs assessment.
The needs assessment really starts with spending some time with the organization and getting a solid understanding of the work they are doing and the issues they are addressing. We look at their current projects and learn from them what needs they have that could be met with volunteer assistance. We gather information regarding any specific skills or experience that the organization would be looking for to assist them with any current or future projects they may have.

Once we have a good understanding of the organizational needs, and the roles to be filled by volunteers; and have made accommodation arrangements for this placement, we create a placement profile and enter it into our placement database. It now becomes an option made available to potential volunteers whose skills and experience match the needs of the organization and placement.

Volunteers have the option to review the placement options available to them and select their top three preferences. The final placement confirmation will come from your country coordinator, and ultimately your acceptance to a specific placement is approved by the placement organization in Tanzania.