Current News, Field Reports and Volunteer Voices

Several times each week, we post stories about work we do in our host communities – through the voices of our partners, volunteers, and those we serve. Subscribe using the form below to receive updates in your inbox when they’re published. If you’re looking for deeper insight into service in a specific country, on a particular type of project, how you can share your unique skills or volunteering as a family or a group, you can find a wealth of information here. Use the categories next to the posts here or on any page (below right column) to explore more stories that suit your interests.

We welcome your ideas on topics you’d like to see here. Please contact us at marketing@globalvolunteers.org. Enjoy our blog!

working with Ukrainian mothers and children

Volunteer Voices Poland

Poland Volunteer Describes Working with Ukrainian Women and Children

In this first-person volunteer story, alumna Penny Louise Flavin describes her experience working with Ukrainian women and children in Poland in April. Penny Louise first served with Global Volunteers in Peru in 2019. Following the pandemic,…

Partners' Stories Texas

Rio Grande Valley community partner says, “We’re trying to build a better world.”

Global Volunteers works in developing communities inside the U.S. as well as around the world. Volunteers are drawn to opportunities to help upgrade the daily lives of average people living in under-resourced communities. Texas Community Partner…

International community development

Reaching Children's Potential Tanzania

International Community Development Profile: Robina Mbata Family

In this series, families in the Reaching Children’s Potential (RCP) Demonstration Program in Tanzania explain how their participation improves their lives. Global Volunteers’ RCP Program engages short-term volunteers to help parents deliver…

Staff Worldwide

Meet Your Team Leader: LaVerne Lewis

Volunteer Team Leader LaVerne Lewis first served with Global Volunteers in 2012 in Tanzania and then went on to serve in China and in Greece. She attended Team Leader Training in 2018 and then led her first team to Cuba in 2019. She attended…

Volunteer Voices Poland

Music and Movement Teacher Fundraises to Support Ukrainian Mothers Through Service

Karen Hogan knows firsthand how important it is to have someone to take care of your child so that a grieving mother can work through a difficult situation. In Jackson, Wyoming, Karen teaches music, movement, and art, and knows the healing…

Reaching Children's Potential Tanzania

Happy Healthy Birthdays for These RCP Children in May 2022!

The Reaching Children’s Potential Program (RCP) of the Ukwega Ward in central Tanzania measures its success by the growth and development of the children in the program. Read about 50 girls and boys who reached their first, second, third,…

News and Updates Poland

“Their Light Brightened Darkness Above our Heads,” says Ukrainian Refugee

One month after Olga arrived in Siedlce, Poland, she felt "at home" among the Polish people who took her in after her country was attacked in March. Since then, she's become a translator for Global Volunteers, and looks forward to many new…

Volunteer Voices Montana

Special Needs Teacher Describes Serving at Summer Camp for Blackfeet Children

Special education teacher Lynn O'Brien of Indiana volunteered on her first service program last summer on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana. Her mother had worked with indigenous populations in Montana as a young woman in the 1950s, and…

News and Updates Poland

We Left “My Best, Free, Beautiful Country.”

As Ukrainian refugees headed to our Polish partner community of Siedlce in March, 2022, we quickly mobilized short-term volunteers to help provide humanitarian services. At the exquisite rural manor house, Reymontowka, Global Volunteers team…

Reaching Children's Potential Tanzania

Reaching Children’s Potential in Tanzania: Welcoming New Moms to the Program in April

Every month, Global Volunteers’ caregivers in the Ukwega Ward of Tanzania meet with families who wish to participate in the Reaching Children’s Potential (RCP) Demonstration Program. The goal of RCP is to eliminate childhood stunting…

Staff Worldwide

Meet Your Team Leader: Ginny Giffin

Volunteer Team Leader Virginia (Ginny) Giffin began volunteering with Global Volunteers in 2008 in Ecuador and then in Poland in 2009. She went through Team Leader Training with Global Volunteers in 2009 and has since led eight teams: one in…

Development Impact, Ripple Effect

The Ripple Effect of Short-Term Volunteers

Most volunteers are characteristically modest when estimating their personal impact in Global Volunteers' partner communities. But when measuring the cumulative outcomes of service programs over time, we've demonstrated that the transformative…