Global Volunteers works in partnership with community leaders on genuine development programs, creating impact in the areas of health, nutrition and intellectual development.
Global Volunteers’ Philosophy of Service guides team members on the principles of responsible volunteering. This alumni volunteer shares a practical example of how this works on site in Chennai, India and elsewhere around the world. By Fran, India Volunteer. At Assisi Illam, the daycare center in Chennai where we’re serving, we’ve just finished singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, […]
When Bud Philbrook and Michele Gran opted out of a honeymoon cruise to take a more meaningful trip, they stumbled onto a rewarding way to enrich their own lives and help thousands of children around the world. Instead of their planned cruise, Bud and Michele spent a week in a rural village in Guatemala. After the local newspaper wrote a story about their unusual honeymoon, people started contacting them asking how they could plan a similar trip.
This unconventional honeymoon led to Global Volunteers’ founding in 1984. Since then, Global Volunteers has engaged more than 32, 000 volunteers in over 200 communities. Watch the full honeymoon story on the Oprah Show…
The next step is to chat online with one of our Volunteer Coordinators. We’re ready to assist you with project descriptions, travel questions, registration guidance, and other program details.
A unique butterfly garden highlights our work in Costa Rica! You’re needed to help plant native species that attract butterflies, build walkways, lay gravel, and landscape the garden. Costa Rica’s Astounding Biodiversity While Costa Rica covers a mere 0.03% of the Earth’s land surface, it contains nearly 5% of all of the species of flora […]
Being invited into the home of a community member while on a service program is an experience volunteers do not soon forget. Here, Ecuador volunteer Katie Leon reflects on the home visit her team had with Alexandra, a young mother in Calderón. A certain amount of apprehension among volunteers about being invited into a stranger’s […]
On the barren hillsides of Alto Progres, Peru, you can magnify your volunteer efforts by assisting families in need! Within the district of Pamplona – one of 150 destitute communities districts of Lima – Alto Progreso’s 350 families survive amidst extreme living conditions. Within a sea of more than one million people, children and youth grow up with intermittent electricity, no […]
When I asked the community of Alto Progreso what project they needed help with and they replied a wall, I honestly was a little scared. I knew they meant a 40-meter-long wall. I knew they had no machinery whatsoever. I knew it would mean a lot of sweat. But I also knew of the importance of […]
And so we finally started our service program in Alto Progreso. Alto Progreso is a struggling community of about 350 families in Pamplona Alta, in the barren hillsides of Lima. Sherry was our first volunteer for the job. Upon arrival, we did not know how things would turn up, but we had much excitement and expectation. […]
Christmas Day in Peru, a journal entry from a volunteer serving in Peru: “Fireworks all over the place, like you have never seen before.” That was the consensus for those of us who had never spent a Christmas Eve in Lima before. The previous night, we had all sat together and shared a delicious meal next […]