As a general rule, uni students love to travel.  Many of you reading this will be in the midst of travel. Some have just returned from a gap year, others are planning their next trip away, and we all know that mature-age students have travelled extensively, as they are kind enough to recount their life stories to us in lectures and tutorials every week.

These days, students have a variety of travel options to choose from.  Many tour packages are now aimed at the student crowd, and with the advent of budget airlines has made travelling even easier for the cash-strapped uni student. Young people have been backpacking through Europe like pilgrims for years, however, now more than ever, you may be hearing buzzwords such as “meaningful travel” and “make a difference” being thrown around in relation to the next big thing in travel – volunteer tourism.

Make no mistake - volunteer tourism is big business.  It is becoming a more prevalent feature of the tourism market, and tour operators have been taking notice. A vast number of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have begun offering travel opportunities for tourists who are looking for more than just sightseeing. Chances are that you or someone you know will participate in volunteering overseas.

Last year, I spent five weeks volunteering as an English teacher in the city of Medan, Indonesia, as part of the UTAS unit called Professional Placement in Asia.  It was an opportunity that I jumped at as soon as I heard about it. I had always been interested in volunteering overseas, and being able to gain University credit while travelling made the idea even more appealing.  I took the prerequisite unit, Volunteering in Asia, in semester one 2009, and completed my term of volunteering straight after the semester two exam period in November and December 2009.

You may be wondering what type of degree would let me travel and gain university credit? Well, it’s a good old Bachelor of Arts.  To all BA students – ignore the naysayers.  Your BA degree is what you make it, and there are a multitude of overseas units to choose from. Professional Placement in Asia is just one of several overseas units offered by the School of Asian Languages and Studies and the Faculty of Arts as a whole.  In fact, this is the second opportunity I have been given that has allowed me to travel whilst studying. In 2008 I spent a year’s worth of units in a UTAS exchange program learning Japanese in Japan.  That means that almost half of my BA degree has been completed overseas, and it’s fair to say that my Bachelor of Arts has been the biggest learning experience of my life.

Indonesia was yet another learning curve. It didn’t even feel like I had left Australia until we landed in Medan. The arrivals section of the airport was chaos, though the customs section was a breeze with its lack of security. Grabbing our bags from the crowded bag carousel, we spotted a taxi driver holding a sign with our names on it. Knowing he had been sent by the NGO, we hopped into his taxi and were off.

As I stared out the window from the backseat of the taxi, I realised that I had entered another world.  Medan attacked my senses. The noise from hundreds of honking cars, motorbike horns, and screaming engines. The smells of a thousand indescribable smells.  The sights – the mayhem of the traffic, the crumbling buildings that blurred past my window, the cloud of pollution in the air. 

The NGO we were volunteering with, International Humanity Foundation (IHF), is one of the smaller NGOs offering overseas placements to volunteers.  IHF has centres in Indonesia, Thailand and Kenya, and aims to provide the poor with a decent education about the world and to educate the world about the poor. I chose IHF because it seemed like a genuine NGO – we didn’t have to pay to volunteer (our weekly fee of US$50 covered food, power and other living costs), and the organisation is non-profit, non-religious and non-political.  The work was intensive and time-consuming – eight hours a day, six days a week.  For two hours a day, we taught English to almost a hundred students, whilst the rest of the time was devoted to class preparation, centre maintenance and administration work for IHF.

At IHF’s Medan centre, there were modest living quarters.  My room was large, including two bunk beds, and a bathroom that didn’t work.  Actually, ‘didn’t work’ described the centre well. There was a stove that didn’t work, a water pump that didn’t work, some doors didn’t close and others didn’t open.  Areas of the roof looked like they were on the verge of caving in, and the building appeared to have various electrical hazards.

However, despite all of this, the poverty, the pollution, the poor functionality, all of these ‘issues’ contrasted with the wonderful people I came to meet over the coming days. These included the other volunteer teachers from the local community and from overseas, the friendly people from the local community and the amazing children, who turned up to all their classes ready and eager to learn.

In a way, I already knew it, but it only really becomes apparent when you experience it yourself.  What we aspire to gain as a Western society,money, power and success, the people of Medan do not have.  What they do have is happiness.  Over my time volunteering, we fixed the stove and turned my broken bathroom into a working ensuite.  I wasn’t electrocuted and the roof didn’t fall in.  What didn’t change, however, were the people.  They were more welcoming, friendly and amazing than I could ever have imagined.

Volunteering overseas is an opportunity that I would recommend to anyone who can take it. It provides such an important insight into the lives of others who share completely different morals and cultural norms. You not only learn and explore someone else’s culture, but you realise, as a result, that there are many things that need to be improved in our own society.

So if you are thinking about travelling in the near or distant future, keep volunteering in mind.  There are many ways in which you can help the world, and perhaps even learn more about yourself in the process.

5 Tips for Overseas Volunteering

1. The first step in setting out on a volunteer tourism adventure is to take a moment to outline why it is that you want to travel in this way.  If a big priority for you is to visit a beachside location and to surf whenever you have time off, you probably won’t enjoy volunteering somewhere that requires you to work throughout the day and only have time off in the evenings!

2. Outline your skills and interests and try to find a volunteering program that relates to these.  You will be the most effective volunteering doing something that you already know.   Also, be aware of what you are getting yourself into.  Never forget the seriousness of the situation - understand that you may be exposed to extreme poverty and other traumatic situations.

3. Research, research, research.  You will most likely be volunteering through a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), and there are thousands to choose from.  Every volunteer organisation is different, so it is important that you find one that suits the direction of volunteering you are looking at.  The internet is your best tool.  Once you have found an interesting NGO, use an online search engine to see if the organisation is trustworthy. Google.com is a great way to see if your chosen organisation has been up to anything dodgy!  Be aware that the bigger NGOs will charge you money for volunteering, and that it can actually be quite expensive.  There is both an upside and a downside to this. On the upside, you can be sure that you will have the support you need and that your experience should be a comfortable one, but on the downside you are actually ‘paying’ to volunteer!  There are many smaller NGOs that offer volunteering opportunities at little or no expense, so once again take the time to research this.  Remember, however, that the vast majority of NGOs will require you to pay for your own airfares and insurance.

4. Learn about the culture you are visiting.  Take the time to at least learn the basics of the local language, as this will go a long way in helping you engage with the community.  Learning numbers and greetings is a good place to start.

5. Most importantly, prepare to be unprepared!  Things will go wrong and you will face many challenges.  Having expectations of your volunteering experience will only set you up for disappointment, so set goals instead.  Write down realistic aims, like what you want to achieve through volunteering, and at the end of your time volunteering write down what you feel you achieved and compare these.

For more information on the School of Asian Languages and Studies, visit:

http://fcms.its.utas.edu.au/arts/asianstudies/

For more information on the International Humanity Foundation, visit:

http://www.ihfonline.org/

By Keith Crawford