Volunteering Solutions

Our 18 year-old daughter went to Portugal for the 2-week experience in September 2019. It was one week in Lisbon, then one week in Porto. The week in Lisbon was outstanding, but her experience in Porto was an utter disappointment and potentially dangerous. After two days in Porto, we counseled her to leave the program.

In Lisbon, she stayed at an Impactrip hostel that was sex segregated and safe. In Porto, she stayed at a run-down hostel and was assigned to a room with a middle-aged male tourist—not a program participant. In Lisbon, she was with a cohort of other program participants her age. In Porto, she was alone. In Lisbon, she worked until 6 PM. In Porto, she was expected to work alone until midnight and travel alone back to the hostel. Perhaps you can see why she and her parents were so surprised and disappointed by the Porto experience.

We talked with a VolSol rep in Lisbon and told her that the situation was unacceptable. The rep offered to find another volunteer option, but by this point, all trust had been lost. At our own expense, we put our daughter up in a hotel and she finished out her remaining days in the city as a tourist. The clear reality is that VolSol has a strong program in Lisbon and a terrible, ineffective, and dangerous program in Porto.

To give a summary, the last five weeks have been the most amazing five weeks of my life.
When arriving at the center you are warmly welcomed and shown around. It is a lot to take in because the center is pretty big and there are a lot of animals.
Working hours are from 8 till 12 and half past 2 till 5, which is a good amount. Every day the animals need to be feed and there cages to be cleaned and when that is done we work on extra work, which is really diverse.
I have loved every day of my stay here and that is partly because of the animals and of the amazing people of yana cocha.

It's a interesting journey. In this journey I tried a lot thing that are first time.

This volunteer experience for me is very meaningful. I was really enjoy the two weeks I spent in Thailand. I knew many new things, the stuffs are all very responsive and the members in our group are very nice. That was a challenge for me to be a volunteer, with their help I made it successfully. I would be thank you for everyone who help me during this journey.
Thanks for you all.

Absolutely amazing from the moment I landed, was well taken care of by the local coordinator and really enjoyed the balance of volunteering/ sightseeing, I felt like I accomplished and witnessed so much of Rabat already in the short week I went and am hoping to be able to go back for longer in 2018 to experience more of what Morocco has to offer in addition to helping out with Women's Rights NGO Joussour.

The sightseeing - Kasbah de Ouidayas, Hassan II Tower and Old King's Mausoleum, Aghdal, downtown Rabat and the Medina were the highlights of my trip.

Definitely enjoyed and definitely worthwhile, planning to do it again in 2018.

The trip was really awesome. It was my first time to go outside Europe and this project was the ideal thing to do for the first time! It is a good combination between different volunteering projects, travelling, and being with international people. The week in Mr. Lee's elephant village and the day in the Khao Yai national park were the absolute highlights for me. Beside that, we had a great tour guide in Kwang. She took care of us really well, arranged everything for us and did literally anything to help us. Big shout out to Kwang! I had an amazing time in Thailand.

Kwang is the best! She really took care of everything. When something went wrong with the beach extension, we had one day less at Koh Phangan, she kept us informed as good as she could.

I enjoyed all the projects actually. The childcare and elephants were the most exciting for me. Luckily we could stay another day in the elephant village, because me and two others decided not to go to Cambodia. It was a pity that the childcare was only two days, those kids were amazing.