Friends for Asia: Art Relief International

I recently completed three months of volunteering with ARI. My experience with this program and all the people who I interacted with along the way- staff, community members, and workshop participants- has been truly life-changing. I could not recommend CCT/ARI more to anyone considering volunteering in Thailand or in general. We all came here for different reasons and we all found new ones that continued to fuel us along the way. The diversity in volunteer backgrounds and aspirations is what makes this organization what it is and what has made my experience as complete and enriching as it was.
Without doubt I will miss attending workshops everyday but this experience will always be a part of me and I know that CCT/ARI will only continue to move forward as they acquire new volunteers and connections within the community. If you are thinking about this program, stop thinking and go for it! If you do need to talk to someone more extensively about it, both Emma and Wad (Assistant Director and Executive Director respectively) are amazingly helpful and responsive to e-mail, so ask questions if you have them!

I am a 19 year old female from Ireland and I completed eight weeks with CCT/ARI. My experience was amazing! I could not pick a fault with the organisation and or my experience there. The staff were amazing as were the other volunteers in the volunteer home. I say home because that is what it was. It was not just a house. I made many friends whom I will stay in contact with forever I'm sure.
The volunteering was great and made a huge impact on the way I think and live my life now. I urge all to do this. You will not regret it!!!

Last summer I volunteered as an intern with Art Relief International (ARI). During my 3 months in Chiang Mai I felt extremely welcomed by both the CCT/ARI staff, as well as the community partners we worked with. I became friends with a group of amazing individuals volunteering from a variety of countries, and felt extremely touched and impacted by all the people I met and experiences we shared along the way. Thanks to the program structure, community partners, dedicated and supportive staff, and motivated volunteers, my time with ARI was life-changing, creative, energetic, rewarding, inspiring, and unforgettable!

My time with CCT was wonderful. The community groups that CCT enabled us to work with were incredibly fun, engaging and taught me a lot about patience and kindness. These groups we worked with not only gave me perspective on my own life, but they also helped me to understand the value of giving something to someone else without asking anything in return. Although it was not my intent to be returned anything, what I did get back were experiences I will keep for a lifetime - experiences which I did not truly understand the effect of until long after I was back inside the realities of my own world in Australia. The other volunteers on the program became life friends, as we shared something so utterly unique and creative together. Designing the workshops was probably my favourite thing about the CCT experience...although everything was pretty great on a whole (minus the mosquito's!!).