International Volunteer HQ - IVHQ

Volunteering in Lima was a life changing experience. I know this is the cliqué thing to say, but it honestly did change my life. Volunteering allows you to remember, in case you've forgotten, how lucky you are. Others are much more unfortunate than you are. Being able to give your time and effort to help others is so full filling and life enhancing. I feel in love with helping others, and now, even being back home, I´ll continue to volunteer with kids with special needs and I´ll never stop doing it. IVHQ provided me with much more than just a volunteering program. Volunteering with IVHQ is an amazing experience because they link you with a honest and reliable local organization. People from all over the world come to volunteer and because of this you will be able to make the best friendships ever. You might just know some people for a few weeks and still make friendships to last a life time. I volunteered for 2 months and loved it! I would really recommend this amazing experience for anyone who's willing to go out of their comfort zone and whose ready to help others! do it, you won't regret it.

My daughter and I had the most thrilling, rewarding and truly memorable experience on the teaching programme. The staff and children at the school could not have been more excited to see us every morning and our efforts were truly appreciated. The staff taking care of us, with Volunteer to Uganda, were wonderful in every way, taking care of us, ensuring, not only our placements were successful but also our time off provided opportunities to experience something of the beauty of the country. I would totally recommend IVHQ and the teaching placement in Uganda - it has changed our lives for the better!

I found volunteering in the Philippines through IVHQ to be a very rewarding experience. The country itself was so beautiful and the people there were so generous and welcoming, I immediately felt settled in. The first 3 days I had for orientation I got a basic language class, went to a local farm, had a roof making class, went into Puerto Princesa for the day and also had a cooking class which altogether I found to be really enjoyable. For my actual volunteer work I did the Environmental project which included coastal cleanups as well as cleanups of the surrounding streets of the accommodation, visiting a fertiliser farm and learning how the locals sieve their own soil, up-keeping the garden in the volunteers accommodation, planting different plants in surrounding areas and watering them throughout your stay, lesson planning and then later visiting the school to teach the children about the environment and pollution and lastly going to the mangroves which I found to be the most rewarding part of the experience. The majority of our mornings during the week was spent in the Mangroves where we collected seeds and later planted them in a effort to rehabilitate areas of the mangroves that had be cut down significantly. Overall I left feeling accomplished and would 100% highly recommend going to the Philippines to anyone as I left having met so many amazing people and feeling as though I made my own personal impact on the locals lives in Tigman village.

I highly recommend the IVHQ volunteer experience in Naples, Italy. The local staff were great with making sure we were comfortable at the accommodations as well as at the volunteer placement. They were always present and very easy to communicate with. My placement worked with teaching English to teenage immigrants. However, I think these students taught me far more than I did them. This experience will have a lasting impact on me.

I stayed a week in Bogotá, Colombia and did the childcare program where I spent time at an orphanage with children between 2-5. There are younger as well as older children as well, but the babies were on quarantine so our volunteers were unable to work with them. We also worked with an organization feeding Venezuelan immigrants and refugees. There were about 12-15 volunteers in the house, and I paid an extra fee to be in a private room. The women in charge of the projects are kind and compassionate and the House was run very efficiently. Over the course of the week/weekend the volunteers also went to various local sights and participated in tourist experiences