Program Reviews

Hello fellow travellers, future travellers and everybody else. I am Sangy, Im from England and I'm 28. So here I am in Cambodia, Siem Reap teaching at Kidtea, a NGO school. So what brings me out here? When I was younger I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to be or do. But one thing I was sure about I wanted to help people. In what manner I did not know but from anything that would better someone's life even if it was by the littlest margin would be worth my time. Often as we get older you get swallowed by daily life and busy working away in much different sectors than you thought you would. But that desire to get out there and help people was still there so I finally took the plunge and booked myself on a project. This was a few years ago and still to this day I still hold such fond memories. To locals who take you in as their own family, to the children who are introvert at first who then go on to give you the biggest and warmest hugs, the loudest and happiest greetings, create such infamous drawings and humorously mimic my English accent.

As cliche as it sounds it has changed me. The world is such a vibrant and unique place with hundreds of different cultures and way of living, so to be a part of one and immerse yourself in a different way than solely visiting or passing through a place, is beyond eye opening.

This is my third voluntary project I have done abroad with Love Volunteers which itself speaks volumes and I just love it more and more each time.

But forget the 'Sangy Story'. If you have or are pondering about doing it, just go out there take the leap and make your own incredible story and journey.

Volunteering in Peru was a great experience. It allowed me to not only fully immerse myself and explore the city of Cusco but also give back to that community.
I felt better taking part than simply being a tourist and my efforts were both appreciated and thanked.
Getting to know 8 children with disabilities over one month made it very difficult to leave upon the end of my time in Peru but I am still quite glad to have done this program.

When I had the opportunity to go to a local football(soccer) game in town I took it. I offered to pay at the entrance to the field, but was told to 'just go in'. The game had started and I made my way through the standing crowd to about mid-field. I was the only foreigner. Most of the crowd were home town fans and they were enthusiastic and LOUD. The rival team had two men drumming full tilt.
It wasn't long before our team scored! A jubilant young man in the crowd turned, walked over to me, and shook my hand in congratulations. I knew I was in a very special town indeed.

I spent three weeks volunteering in a school in Rabat. I had an absolutely amazing experience. I was in a classroom with 10 or so 12 year old girl and in three weeks I have able to see their English improve so much. I would highly recommend this program to everyone. Ali and Jihane were so helpful for the duration of my stay in Rabat from everything to tours of the area to just hanging out together. All in all it was a great experience and I will be telling my friends about it.

It was overall a good experience.Everything came together and was an excellent learning experience. It was challenging, but I wasn't looking for anythinv easy.

I recommend for someone who is brave and looking for a challenge. I learned a lot about myself and the county.

This trip wasn't about partying, but it was about learning.And I had a lot of flexibility with my plans. The coordinators were encouraging and made sure I enjoyed my experience.

I volunteered in Nepal through Love Volunteers back in March of 2014. It was an overall great experience. Kelly was very helpful and always got back to my emails and questions very quickly. I was picked up on time at the airport by Keshab and shown around a bit before we went back to the volunteer house. I had my own room with a cute balcony, which was very peaceful as it was situated in the hills. It had a bathroom with a western toilet, a shower, and a sink. The beds are low to the ground with a pad for a mattress, but there were so many thick woolly blankets, I just used a few of them for extra padding. The power goes off for 6 or more hours at a time in Nepal, there is a daily schedule so you know when it will go off. The house was equipped with solar lights in every room which would last a hour or two. Food is served for every meal. The cook and his family live on site and really make some great food. Expect rice, veggies, chapati, and sometimes noodles. No meat is served. Chicken and mutton can be found at any of the restaurants. But it is not readily available everywhere. This didn't bother me, I got a healthy diet (for once) of veggies, felt better than I usually do at home, and lost some weight! I had signed up for the environment program, which wasn't clearly described at the time on the web site. I found out when I got there that they primarily wanted me to teach children at the school about the environment, which I expected to do some of, but also more hands on clean up kinds of projects. Teaching at the school turned out to be amazing. I enjoyed it very much and loved spending time with the children. I spoke to Keshab about the more hands on part of the program, and he arranged for me to stay one week at an eco farm in Pokhara (Mountain View Eco Farm--google it!) Keshab and Manoj arranged my transport via bus on Swiss Travels. I stayed the weekend in downtown Pokhara, which was really a great experience. Many shops and restaurants, I even did a bit of a trek up to the Annapurna viewpoint. After the weekend Manoj met me by car and took me up to the eco farm personally and introduced me to the family. The farm is at the top of a large hill, or small mountain, and is a mud style house. It was beautiful and you can see the Annapurna range in the mornings. I got settled in my room, which was basic, with dirt floor and little bed with pad mattress. I had a beautiful view from my window every morning! Bathroom is a squat toilet outside, and shower is outdoor too, with an option for hot water (you have to boil it.) It was a rough experience, but nothing I couldn't handle. The family was great, and the wife would make great food that we picked fresh from the field each day. In the morning you help her pick the food for the day, and then you might help build a structure, like a green house, or plow a bit of a field, or plant. Sometimes they do seminars on eco farming for other local farmers to attend and learn. Down the mountain a bit is a coffee plantation and honey farm. It's a real treat to walk there in the morning and have fresh ground coffee and honey in front of the mountains. After that I went back to Kathmandu and stayed the remainder of my trip in the volunteer house. Keshab helped me arrange transport to Nagarkot to the Everest view point. They are really so accommodating and helpful, they went out of their way time and again to help me and make sure I was having a happy and fun time. At the school and volunteer house there were Chinese students also volunteering. We went out quite a bit by bus to Thamil, a nearby market. At the eco farm there were 3 other Americans volunteering. I had a great time where ever I went and would recommend this trip to anyone! If you can handle tent camping you shouldn't have too much of a problem with the living conditions :) it's worth it trust me!

Initially, given this years terrorist events in Kenya, I was hesitant to go to Mombasa to volunteer. I had considered changing the location to volunteer.

I'm very happy that the Love Volunteers staff convinced me to make it to Kenya. This experience has been life changing. The kids have amazing energy and are fun to be around. For as little as they have, their zest for life they carry is truly inspirational. Mombasa is located on the beach, sitting right on the Indian ocean. The weather is perfect year around. The kids and I went to the beach almost daily.

A night, I was able to venture off and join in on some of the beach and club parties that are common place.

A great mixture of volunteering and having a little fun for myself. Highly recommend this opportunity. The kids are so appreciate of the time I could spend with them. They need more volunteers to come. I have plan to go back and visit in July of next year.

My boyfriend and I just came back from our volunteering trip in Rwanda. We were really disappointed when we got there because nothing that writes on Love Volunteer website is correct. Well, you could claim it is correct, but the house and community in Rwanda is represented way better than it actually is in many aspects.
Firstly, we got there and the school was almost finishing so we were told we could only SUPERVISE kids while they were doing tests, but that wasn't what we came for--we were not told that school was finishing even though we signed up for teaching program. Then, we were expected to go farming and housebuilding (the programs we did not sign up for and when we told them we came here to teach, they didn't understand what we were saying) every day and carry the heavy bricks for 700 meters even though we had a car. I just could not carry the mud bricks that weighted up to 30kg! We told our host we could use their car to bring many bricks at once and not to carry them one by one in +30 degrees, but they told us we couldn't do that.
In the end, we managed to teach, but just for a few hours. But, everything is unorganised. When we got to the school, our host told us to tell the headmaster what we wanted, and we were unprepared for that because we thought that everything was prearranged. Also, on Love Volunteers website it writes that you volunteer every day from 8 am to 5 pm, which is not true. We volunteered for two hours, then we had couple of hours off and then we volunteered for two hours or so again.
Another thing is that there simply wasn't enough food. Every day there was around 8 of us eating portions of food meant for three people. And it was low calorie food, which you just couldn't eat enough of in order not to feel hungry. We were dizzy and hungry most days, sometimes we even couldn't fall asleep because we were too hungry to do so. For example, one morning for breakfast there were three slices of toast for five of us, and there was no spreading for a few days.
Another surprise was the shower and toilet. From Love Volunteers website we concluded that everything was modern and up to some western standards (because you said on the website that we had wi-fi, kitchen and laundry -- none of which we had btw.), but it wasn't. The shower and the toilet were outside the house, in the back. We were supposed to shower with bucket, and the toilet was a hole in the ground with cockroaches inside of it. Even though you said there was wi-fi, it wasn't working for the whole time we were there. The kitchen consisted of a refrigerator and nothing else. The place where they cooked was outside the house, in the back, on the open. There was no laundry - unless you call washing the clothes in a bucket and then leaving them on the grass to dry laundry. We got our clothes after a few days, having asked for it several times. We got it still wet and stinky from the moisture that didn't go away after washing it. The garbage is situated in the garden. Better said, they use the garden solely for disposing trash - everywhere.
Also, we weren't allowed to sleep in the same room, seclude from the "Christian community" or even hug - which you are supposed to say on Love Volunteers website because it says that couples are allowed.
Our rooms were part of the offices in which they were working.
When we went to a National park, we asked they make us some food for the trip. However, they said that they couldn't do that and that there was no food. And when we told them that we were going to buy the food and cook it ourselves, they said that we were not allowed to use the kitchen to cook.

Apart from all the bad things, there were some good ones as well. Denis, who lives in the house we stayed in, is really the nicest person we ever met. He is always laughing, never sees anything as a problem. We had fun donating goats and had a good time teaching at homework club. Those kids were truly amazing and interested in what we were talking, so we really felt welcomed in the classes we had.

My trip to Thailand was stunning and volunteer-filled. The trip was a unique experience. My favorite part was meating the Thai children. The kids were adorable and sweet. Also during the trip I met so many new friends from around the world. The food was delicious. I suggest this trip to others!

I was happy with the Program I specific chose. To work and live with the blind was not difficult at all. I received a very nice and warm welcome from them. For me, it's a great challenging that I had to learn and understand how to communicate with the blind. How to communicate with the blind taught me how to think both; as me and as the blind at the same time.

I worked directly with the founder and executive director of IEC Nepal in Pokhara and I also lived at his place with his family. The Home Office has an amazing view of Annapurna and Himalayas, fresh air,... and nice and cleaned location.

We did not only talked and shared ideas, opinions about the programs for the blind, but also share any information about living, hygiene, nutrition, culture, and more....

I wrote a proposal for fund raising to an international organization in Europe. I joined with them for any situation as much as I could, and also as a part of the family.

I think, the Blind or any program for disable people really needs more volunteers. Let's make different !!

Special thanks for Kelly, Mike, LV staffs and Keshab, Manoj of the local team. Guys, you did very professionally and very impressive for all suggestion, information, management, and friendliness.