The 12 Essential Services for Development Projects Abroad

The power of volunteers changes everything. The needs in our host communities are vast, and so are the opportunities to make a genuine difference. United Nations agencies cooperate to address the fundamental obstacles preventing children worldwide from reaching their full potential. Global Volunteers responds to help where needed. To do this, we adapted the innovative work of the World Food Program (WFP), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to make development projects abroad accessible to short-term volunteers. Our model enables you to contribute directly and meaningfully in three broad categories: Hunger, Health and Cognition. Read our Essential Services Prospectus here. These are the areas where you make the greatest impact.

Development Impact

Global Messages Offered for International Day of Peace 2023

The United Nations designates September 21 every year as the "International Day of Peace" to focus the world's attention on unity and reconciliation by observing 24 hours of non-violence and cease-fire. United Nations Secretary-General António…

The Power Behind the Reaching Children’s Potential Program: Parents!

Around the world, parents, especially mothers, play a critical role in preventing malnutrition and supporting the growth and development of their children. Before birth, mothers’ nutrition, health practices, and mental well-being impact the…

Development Impact Tanzania

The History of the Reaching Children’s Potential Program from Anse-la-Raye to Ipalamwa

Running to catch a taxi after meetings at the World Food Programme (WFP) in Rome, Nancy Walters, a senior executive at WFP, handed me a copy of The Essential Package and encouraged me to read it. This United Nations agencies document detailed…

Development Impact Cuba, Montana, Peru, St Lucia, Tanzania, Texas

Why nutrition is a smart investment

Malnutrition and food insecurity are grim issues affecting millions of people worldwide. The latest report from the United Nations shows we are moving backward in efforts to eliminate hunger, and families in low-resource communities bear the…

Development Impact Montana

Insight and Compassion Fuels Blackfeet Food Security Program

The Blackfeet Food Access and Sustainability Team (FAST Blackfeet) helps people living in poverty on the Blackfeet Reservation confront food insecurity head on. By providing recipes, nutrition classes and weekly access to meal staples and traditional…

Development Impact, Reaching Children's Potential

Care for Women and Heal the World

Women of the world are an overlooked, dismissed resource for unimaginable change. Over generations, societies which tolerate or promote gender bias and deny girls and women full participation in development squander and repress the contributions…

Development Impact, Reaching Children's Potential

Girls’ Contribution to the World – Nurturers, Laborers, Leaders, Our Future

Girls study, perform domestic chores, work on farms and in stores, carry on traditions, care for elders and siblings, and prepare themselves to take on the responsibilities of adulthood. They’re a fundamental source of transformational change…

Development Impact, Reaching Children's Potential Tanzania

2022 Allen Foundation, Inc. Grant Results

The Reaching Children’s Potential (RCP) Nutrition Education and Technology Project has helped improve the nutrition practices of 100 families living in poverty in the Ukwega ward, Tanzania. Over 860 families are currently enrolled in Global…

Development Impact

39 Years of Volunteer Service Worldwide!

It started in Minnesota, by four people who had a simple idea, about waging peace . . . In the past 39 years, Global Volunteers has mobilized over 38,000 volunteers to serve children and families in partner communities in 36 countries…

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — International Confederation of Midwives and the Sustainable Development Goals
March 8, 2021/by Michele Gran

meaningful travel in Africa — Meaningful Travel for the Experience of a Lifetime
March 16, 2017/by Michele Gran

UMT2206A1 Alex Harr w Community Member — FAST Blackfeet Mobilizes Global Volunteers on 2022 Return to Reservation
June 20, 2022/by Michele Gran

Role of women Africa — The Global Role of Women – Caregivers, Conscience, Farmers, Educators and Entrepreneurs
March 8, 2019/by Michele Gran

PER0806A2 Grandmother of a girl at PPA (visit) — A Day at a Time in Peru – Building a Partnership for Progress
March 8, 2019/by Michele Gran

PER1906A1 garden sign — “We Must Keep Our Focus on the Future,” Advises Global Volunteers Peru Partner
September 11, 2020/by Michele Gran

earthbox-with-hand — EarthBox® Partnership Nourishes Mothers and Children in Tanzania
November 8, 2019/by Michele Gran

Ipalamwa Tanzania — Ipalamwa is Nexus for Ambitious Demonstration Program
May 9, 2017/by Michele Gran

teaching in Nepal — Nepal Volunteers Pave Way for Long-term Development Partnership
April 1, 2019/by Michele Gran

We enable you to work with local leaders on community-based projects – because mothers’ and children’s nutrition, health and cognition are fundamental to every community’s vitality. Research clearly demonstrates that children who have enough food, sufficient nutrition and adequate protection from infectious disease progress better, and develop normally, as compared to children without those essentials. By contributing to volunteer projects abroad that provide all 12 Essential Services, you invest in the entire community’s success. Its an additive process that – over time – yields real, measurable and significant results.

The 12 Essential Services for Development Projects Abroad

Global Messages Offered for International Day of Peace 2023

The Power Behind the Reaching Children’s Potential Program: Parents!