When I was traveling in Japan, I decided on a whim to stay on an island that had a population under 100 people and stay with a local that offered the only year-round accommodations. Since he was a life long local, he showed me all of the great hidden gems of the island while interacting with us entirely in English that he learned from TV.
During our time there, all he asked for in return was having conversations with us to give him confidence in his newfound love for learning English.
While I've only been here for a short while, it has further assured me of the hard work that goes into running non-profit.
From being a volunteer in the past for another non-profit I learned this lesson, but now from a new perspective, I get to better understand what goes into making everything run smoothly. I've been given the opportunity to apply my marketing knowledge from traditional education to help a company whose values I support personally.
While I've been here, I've had the opportunity to read the testimonials from a volunteer who spent their time in Chile. While he was there, he made a lot of stark observations about himself and the volunteers around him just as much as he took in the culture of Chile. Some self-realizations he made were his newly developed confidence, adaptability, and independence.
There are few I would really like to try across Asia like Japan, Nepal, The Philippines, and Vietnam, although I would have to choose the South African Sports Coaching program. This is because my goal when traveling is always putting myself in cultures that are significantly different than my own. This program would allow me to show the culture of American sports at the same time as learning about the culture of South Africa through the lens of sports aswell.
Our company is unique in its goals and value to build a united planet. While world peace and cultural understanding is a widespread phenomenon, United Planet's values go further than the cultural immersion of most programs. This company is built around giving back to the communities you immerse within a multidirectional exchange of culture.
The biggest factor is that volunteers are not only getting value out of their quests and programs, but they also see the impact they have on these communities. It shows that absolutely anyone can have an impact on their community and it is rewarding. This goes into our new program that creates a form of exchange that can be done virtually all across the world without the financial requirements that studying abroad typically would.