SOUTH AFRICA VOLUNTEER TRIP

What Charity to choose?

I’ve always wished I could make a difference for those without a voice, but where do you start?

First of all , I made up my mind where I wanted to go, and I was quite open with what kind of animals to work with. As the internet is such a vast medium of information, a lot isn’t quite truthful. Everyone can build a website and make it look genuine. The only way to find out if an organisation is genuine is dig deep.

It was going to be South Africa for my first project, the more I read, the more confused I got, there are SO many ONGs advertised and you will find most of them through agencies. I must have spent 100 hours doing research, if not more.

The 3 projects I thought looked interesting, I did some due diligence.. however the deeper I dug into them and read reviews, the more I found out, that yes, they were an ONG, but no, not all of them did do what they were advocating.

I then also decided to try to contact the organisation directly instead of going through a middle man, another 20 hours browsing later, I had a couple that looked very promising and I finally decided that Wildlife Act! was the organisation I wanted to spend my time and energy with.

My advice to you if you ever want to jump in and make a difference, read reviews, lots of them, look up the company, their history, achievements, 3rd party stories before making a decision. Take your time, the last thing you want is coming back disappointed.

Working as a volunteer isn’t free of charge, it will cost you money and depending on the type of charity it can be quite costly. Don’t forget these organisations don’t get money from the government, their means of income is through the volunteers, so don’t begrudge paying, your entire stay (except flights) are paid, airport pick-up, accommodation, food and you’ll come back as a different person, with everything you will have seen and learned.