Program Reviews

Participating in the care and community program was the second time I had the opportunity to volunteer in Nepal so I wasn't expecting much difference from the previous organization I went with; however, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the program.

The living conditions were better than I expected. There was everything from a clean bed and bathroom to room service and laundry services available at request. We were well fed and all of the food served at the hotel was delicious. The staff at the Prince Hotel were also extremely friendly and accommodating to our needs.

The people I met were also very friendly. I was also surprised by the many different backgrounds of the volunteers that volunteered alongside me. There were students from all over the world that came to participate and it was a joy learning to communicate in their languages and making foreign friends.

If I have the time and opportunity, I would definitely partake in the program again. I give this program my highest recommendation for those who want to help others while visiting a foreign country.

Peru!! What an incredible place. From beautiful buildings to incredible views. The people, the food and the markets are great!! The schools and the children are so warm hearted!! Great experience!!

I have never meet a company that is so informative and helpful. They always answer all their emails, and even take phone calls. Very easy to communicate and organise things with. This was the same when I was in Peru. Always there and ready to help.

My experience during my placement has amazing. It was fun, heartwarming, and enjoyable time. I was lucky to work with a great group of students, and all different ages. I had time to work with them 1 on 1, as well as in a group.

I found the altitude a little difficult, but got use to it very quickly. My family actually gave me a special tea to help. My family did many beautiful things to help make my stay enjoyable. They took me on a tour around the city, cooked amazing food, spent time with me learning spanish, as well as taking me to the market.

During my time in Peru I got to meet with many of the other volunteers. We spent nights at restaurants having dinner, seeing in karaoke bars as well as doing some small tours. It was nice to feel safe and like I had a whole new family here.

It was a once in the lifetime experience, and I hope too and can not wait to go again!!! Thank your Projects Abroad.

From mine & other volunteers experiences this voluntourism does not seem to be harmful but I also do not believe it does much good. A lot of us felt we weren't needed at our placements and did not make any difference with our volunteering.

Considering the low cost of living in Vietnam the courses are hugely over priced and the company is very cheap when it comes to paying for transport and food despite how much volunteers pay. Had multiple bad experiences with staff right from the booking process through to leaving.

Only thing that made the project enjoyable was the people there. Would highly recommend avoiding Projects Abroad and going directly to an NGO which will be much cheaper and you're time there will be useful. Other volunteers agreed that Projects Abroad was not an ethical organisation and they wished they had used a different company. Stay away!!

My time in Fiji was an amazing and unforgettable experience. I stayed in Nadi and interned/volunteered for the Nutrition Project through Projects Abroad. Fiji overall is a great country to travel to; its beauty is stunning, there is plenty to do in your free time, and I felt very safe the whole time. I stayed with a host family, which was such a great experience. My host mom, "Lo" as we called her, was such a sweet spirit who did everything she could to make the volunteers feel comfortable and at home. She was also a great cook, and made us delicious traditional Fijian meals every night! I loved having dinner with her and the rest of the family every night and playing with her 4 kids.

The nutrition project itself was an amazing and unique learning experience as well as a ton of fun! I am a nutrition student at the University of Alabama, so I was able to apply my previous nutrition knowledge as well as learn a lot about Fijian dietary habits/recommendations. We did a variety of things including health screenings, nutrition counseling, and presentations at schools. Everyday was a little different, which kept the project exciting. Our project coordinator, Meiva, was really great in leading us each day, and also was very open to suggestion for how to make the project better. She also asked every intern what they enjoyed or wanted to get out of the project, and made changes accordingly.

Lastly, I think my favorite part of the whole experience was the other volunteers I met while I was there. I loved spending every day with my fellow nutrition volunteers and also getting to know interns from the other projects in Nadi as well. We had “socials” arranged by Projects Abroad and also explored Fiji together in our free time at night or on weekends. I know I made several lasting friendships, and I even have plans for a volunteer I met in Fiji to come visit me this Fall! Overall this was an incredible experience of a lifetime.

My experience with Projects Abroad was really incredible. I would highly recommend this program to anyone who is considering a career in medicine because it allowed me to figure out if I can handle it before I spent the thousands of dollars to attend a nursing program. It also gave me a taste of what I may want to specialize in because I experienced a variety of different environments inside the hospital. It is a very difficult process to view a surgery in the United States, so if you're interested in doing so, consider this alternative.

Essentially, each weekday morning, my roommate and I woke up, had breakfast, packed our lunches and supplies for the day, and waited to be picked up by one of the coordinators to be brought to one of the local hospitals. We would arrive, talk to the doctor who agreed to accept us for the day, and tell him or her where we wanted to go from the options given to us. In the two weeks I spent there, I was sent to pediatrics, nursing, the emergency room, and best of all, the operating room. I was able to watch three surgeries (as in, standing next to the patient, asking questions to the doctors), and it confirmed nursing as a career path for me.

If you're choosing between a medical camp at an American college or an opportunity abroad as I was, hands down choose the latter. It is not only a better experience since you are traveling the world, but it is unique and makes you stand out from the rest of the future med school applicants. This program in particular allows you to experience living with a host family, learning and practicing Spanish, traveling Argentina, and working in real hospitals with real patients. Everything that I was hoping to experience was checked off of my list before I left. I would highly recommend this program.

I went hoping for simply something to set me apart for my pre-med application and resume, but was not prepared for the amount of learning I experienced and the drastic personal change that occurred.
The raw experience was something to behold. As a first time traveller going through Projects Abroad was comforting. I was able to gain confidence to go on weekend excursions and experience enough to definitely set me apart from other graduates.
I wish I had had enough time to stay for an extra week and also travel independently after my project as by that time I felt I had enough knowledge to stay safe, have knowledge about the local culture, and have a good time.
Would 10/10 recommend to any pre-med student or a newbie traveller!

I did the High School Special Care and Community project in Cusco, Peru, with a good friend from home for four weeks this past summer, and I loved every minute of it! Prior to our departure, our parents were a little weary of allowing two teenage girls to travel to a different continent alone, but the Projects Abroad staff were extremely reassuring and provided a ton of information about not only what we were to expect in the country, but how to effectively prepare before and afterwards. Communication with the program was always timely and informative. When we landed in Cusco after a full 24 hours of traveling, we were met exactly in the way that had been described to us previously: with a Projects Abroad sign, by our first and last names, and with a friendly smile. In Cusco we always felt safe, and although the program was structured with activities like building furniture and painting games for schools in the area, we had plenty free time in the afternoons to explore various markets around the city and go to the mall.

The "care" aspect of our project was time we spent in a daycare. We were placed in a local, government-run program for anemic children. There, they were provided with two meals (breakfast and lunch) and a lot of fun toys to play with. Most of the teachers were also parents of a child in the center, so I think our help was very appreciated as they had their hands pretty full. We assisted mostly with feeding the kids and keeping them entertained during the day so their mothers and fathers could go to work nearby. They were all so cute! Around halfway through our time at the placement, my friend and I wanted to switch to helping the older children at the placement. Projects Abroad accommodated this change without hesitation. These kids were around four and five years old, and so we were able to actually help teach them in addition to playing. Their teacher had us make a lot of posters to hang up around their classroom as well as teach them the colors of the rainbow in English. We did lots of chalk drawings outside on the pavement too.

Our host family was amazing as well. We stayed in a house composed of five or so floors, each described as its own “apartment”, which ended up being pretty accurate. Each floor had around three bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen, and living space. Our bedroom even had an ensuite bathroom, which was very nice. Even though we were prepared to sacrifice the showers we usually took at home, we were pleasantly surprised by the pressure quality and the hot water available to us always. Everything in the house was also very clean and organized. Because it was winter when we arrived, it was fairly cold in the house, as none of the buildings in Peru really have indoor heating; however, with a warm blanket, socks, and a jacket, we were fine. They provided us with three meals a day, which typically consisted of pan (a sweet bread) with butter and jam for breakfast, and rice with a meat (chicken, beef, etc.) for lunch and dinner. Overall, I had an amazing experience in Peru, and I recommend the High School Care and Community special to anyone looking to make a positive difference and get a taste for a new culture/country!

This July I joined many other volunteers from around the world on a Care and Community High School Specials Project with Projects Abroad in Cambodia. During my time on this project, I got to experience many different aspects of the country including their culture and their way of life. I got to spend several days in two remote schools on Silk Island, this was truly a big eyeopener. In these schools I got to teach the kids basic English and create friendships during different activities, such as games, singing and dancing. I also got to leave my mark on the school by doing some renovation work, such as painting and plastering walls and concreting paths just outside of the schools. While working with the kids was our main priority, we also went on many cultural and historical trips to give us a better insight on the country we were working in. We visited land marks such as the Killing Fields and the S-21 Genocide Museum, Angkor Wat and its surrounding temples, The Silk Factory on Silk Island and many more. The staff had us busy every evening, be it taking us out for dinner, planning sessions at the hotel, or showing us around the beautiful city of Phnom Penh. The accommodation was very satisfactory and I experienced no issues. I have made some lifelong friends on this trip and will never forget it. There were a mix of staff from all different countries and every one of them were so friendly and helpful. They made sure we got to experience Cambodia as best we could and really made this the trip of an lifetime.

During the summer of 2018, I spent 3 weeks in Cambodia with Projects Abroad. Including weekend trips to Kampot and Siem Reap, I spent most of my time in Phnom Penh working in a school. Overall I found the trip amazing. The weekends and dinners during the week allowed me to relax and enjoy time with the other people on my trip, while the work during the day helped me to feel like I was making a difference. The hotel I stayed with was overall good but the food wasn’t amazing so our project supervisors took us out for dinner nightly. All our problems were dealt with quickly and professionally. Definetly would recommend to others ! Support was also provided afterwards as projects aboard stayed in touch.

TRANSLATION:
This summer I had the opportunity to spend 2 weeks in Rabat, the capital of Morocco and it has probably been the best experience of my life, thanks to Proyects Abroad. Before my trip you can talk to the Projecta Abroad staff from both my country, Spain both from there. Both helped me in my preparation of the trip and in everything I needed. Once there, I stayed in a Moroccan family with 2 other volunteers, the family was lovely! We live in the Medina, the oldest part, it was crazy people, smells and streets. They treated us great and we did not miss anything, they even took us to visit some places with them. During the day, we went to an association of children from broken families and at risk of social exclusion. There, we played with the children and did work like painting or hygiene workshops. The children received us from the first moment with a smile on their face and made us feel welcome and loved. They were children who had so much love to give and receive ... they did not stop giving hugs and kisses! We taught them things of our culture and they taught us things of theirs, but above all they taught us to appreciate what we have and what a simple hug can make a difference in someone's life, I, especially connected with the smallest I was 3 years old and we were inseparable those 2 weeks, I will never forget her !! The staff of Projects Abroad could not be better the truth ... they treated us great, they taught us many things about Morocco ... They were one of the group! And about the other volunteers ... they were the best. There were Americans, Italians, from India, Pakistan, Egypt, Kenya, England, Switzerland ... And we all connected from the beginning and we became very good friends, we laughed a lot together and they made the experience much better. In short, those 2 weeks I learned many things about different cultures, about life and about myself: what I really would like to do when I grow up. All this was possible thanks to Projects Abroad and its excellent organization Thank you!