Program Reviews

I had a very valuable experience in Cambodia. It was a beautiful opportunity to learn about the country and its people. I volunteered with children with disabilities along with a friend from France for 2 weeks. It was a very real chance to work and give back. Difficult at times but we feel that we helped a lot. We saw the project to be very well run and we appreciated the support from the Ubelong team in the US and Cambodia. Especially for the price we think it is a great value and we hope to someday return.

I have Ubelong and my mentor Raul Roman to thank for making my experience in Ho Chi Minh City possible. I am so grateful for Raul's help and guidance over the past few months in making my trip happen. The professionalism and level of ease in working with Ubelong was superb.

During my time in Ho Chi Minh City, the local NGO that Ubelong connected me with was Volunteers for Peace Vietnam. They assigned me to an orphanage called "Chua La" for abandoned kids that had been taken in by Buddhist monks. The monks fed us everyday at their pagoda and I felt very welcome among them. We were among the first group of volunteers that had ever been allowed to work there. The other volunteers I worked with were a wonderful group of people. Fourteen children and a baby were all cared for by one 56 year old women. The amount of work she had in order to care for so many children was overwhelming and it made our work very valuable and necessary.

While helping to provide care for the kids, I also helped renovate the house that the children lived in. Alongside the renovations, me and another volunteer initiated the construction of a garden in front of the orphanage. I spent many hours in the hot sun turning up the soil! After many days and with the help of local and other international volunteers, we planted several flowers, a mango tree, and a squash plant. This garden will improve the image of the orphanage and also help them become more self-sustaining.I hope to see more planting done by future volunteers.

There is still much more work to be done at the Chua La orphanage/pagoda and I hope that things continue to improve as more volunteers are assigned to that particular project. I truly hope that one day I can return to Chua La and see the progress that has been made. I definitely see myself doing more volunteering through Ubelong in my future!

I enjoyed my time volunteering enormously. It was my first time volunteering in a foreign country and I picked Morocco really because I felt it was the most exotic place I felt comfortable going to. My host family was a plesant surprise, I didnt think I could connect so deeply in just the 3 weeks I spent. My project in Rabat Sale was excellent and eye openning. There is some adjustment in the beginning that I do not think I was ready for coming from Europe, but the local teachers and the students most importantly made me feel comfortable. Their passion for learning and interest in learning about me and my background was very refreshing and something my home country perhaps lacks a bit. I am very thankful to Ubelong and the wonderful people I met for this beautiful experience.

Volunteering abroad was something I'd wanted to do for a while, but I never really thought it would become a reality (I'm not the most adventurous person!) until I stumbled across the Ubelong website. The program was perfect for me in every way. It was affordable, I felt supported at all times by my mentor, the volunteer coordinators in Cambodia and the NGO I was working for, and helping on a women's empowerment project was something I was really keen to do.

I was nervous before I left the UK, but meeting other volunteers at the guest house (many of whom were just as nervous as I was, and were great to hang out with in the evenings/weekends) and having the orientation meeting soon put me at ease. I learned so much from the experience – it gave me an insight into what daily life is like in other parts of the world, and also how an NGO operates and the various challenges it faced. My work included a variety of tasks, including writing up proposals for projects and requests for funding, editing information for the website and facilitating a workshop with other NGOs. I’d recommend Ubelong to anyone considering volunteering - it's a professional organisation, which looks after their volunteers and genuinely works to make a difference

Why did I choose UBELONG? The answer is quite simple: UBELONG offers an wealth of choices, incomparable low fees on international volunteer programs, and promises an extraordinary experience. All this, without compromising the quality and professionalism one would expect from an organization such as UBELONG. Not to mention, Raul & Cedric are excellent mentors, always being attentive and caring to their volunteers. Thank you Cedric for following-up with me every time I called and/or e-mailed you. From the preparation briefing to the debriefing after my return to the States, you have been an exceptional mentor. I can’t wait to go back to the same project with UBELONG someday!

I spent 2 weeks in Rabat, Morocco on the Education project and cannot recommend this program enough! It truly was an experience of a lifetime! I was so fortunate to teach, learn and grow from the time I spent in Morocco and from being a part of the UBELONG community. Everything from mingling with locals, learning to cook tajine with my host mom, speaking the funniest Arabic you will ever hear, and most importantly being a positive influence in the lives of all my students – this experience was priceless! I encourage all of you reading this to fish out of the water and apply for the Rabat, Morocco program. It will change you in ways you cannot even begin to imagine. It just may be the best time of your life. I know mine was.

Before I signed up to volunteer in the Galapagos, I looked at a lot of volunteer websites. What struck me about Ubelong's website was its commitment to providing guidance and support for a meaningful experience in one's chosen community.

Because Ubelong is not reinventing the wheel but is aligning itself with well-established volunteer programs, you can jump into an ongoing effort and feel useful from Day One. There is also a guest house in Quito available to volunteers that is an immersion experience in itself. The host family is generous, kind, and helpful to the point that you may not want to leave.

It's true that the conditions at the biological preserve were somewhat, well, rustic, but the community was open and accepting and the overall vibe was very positive. I say that as an older volunteer who found myself among students and other much-younger people. We laughed a lot. I am considering participating in another Ubelong project in the future--it is an affordable, effective, and open-hearted volunteer program.

I volunteered in Hanoi with two friends and had an excellent experience. The support from my Ubelong mentor was excellent, he was very easy to reach and knowledgabe. I don't know how mentors are assigned, but if you can ask for Raul I highly recommend him. I thought the briefing meeting on live chat was also key, it made me see I had an organization supporting me and it gave me the opportunity to ask a lot of questions. Once I arrived it was overwhelming with the traffic, language and culture in general, but after about a week I settled in. I was teaching English in a public school and at first how busy and crowded the classes were surprised me. However, the kids were the best part of my trip and made it so enjoyable. I was shocked at how well behaved they were and the respect they showed us, they called us "teacher". I don't think poor schools in the US are like that. Some other volunteers had just started a volunteer book to pass from one to the other as people came and went, and I found this extremely helpful as I could see what others had done and feel I could pass on what I was learning. The housing was better than I expected, altough it was loud some evenings with people staying up. The food was excellent and I very much enjoyed being with volunteers from all over the world. It was a very good experience and one that I miss and hope to have again soon.

I had a great experience in Ecuador with UBELONG. I worked in Quito for three weeks on the Tumbaco education projects and found it to be challenging yet very rewarding. I found everyone to be friendly, eager to help and supportive of me. A great organization that offers busy people like me the opportunity to take a break and do some good. Thanks.

"Willing to do something" It´s not always enough. Sometimes we need tools to do so. Thank you UBELONG for being the tool I needed to achieve the goal of being a Volunteer, and looking after me the 6 amazing weeks I spent in Cambodia! For those who have the will, don't hesitate, I highly recommend you to do it through UBELONG!

My first visit to the project in November 2010 was so positive that I decided to return for another two week placement this past January 2012. My observation was that the education projects are even more developed than a year ago. There’s more structure and organization, and volunteers are more connected with the community. That’s good to see, there’s clearly been improvements to what is already an incredible operation.