Amazing!

I had never traveled abroad before in my life, but this summer I decided to volunteer through Projects Abroad in Fiji. I had the opportunity to work at a school for special needs students while I was there for one month. The experience was absolutely amazing, the best experience of my life! Projects Abroad was also an amazing organization to work through. They are extremely supportive from the very first time you express interest in volunteering abroad. I wasn't positive where I wanted to go, but after talking multiple times with one of the Projects Abroad staff members via email I decided on Fiji. She was very honest about the advantages and disadvantages of each place. I decided on Fiji because the majority of the population speaks English. When I arrived in Fiji one of the staff members picked me up from the airport, brought me and introduced me to the host family I was living with, and then took me around the town to orient me to where I was living. The next day a staff member took me to my volunteer placement at the school and helped assist me in determining what I would do at the school and what my schedule would be. It was extremely helpful to have this to get started and oriented. The rest of the trip you are on your own, but the office is always close to your home location and you can stop by anytime. The staff members in the office gave me their personal cell phones and assured me to not hesitate to call at ANY time. This was also very reassuring. Every week the staff will put on a workshop for all the volunteers at the office so that all the volunteers can get together and learn about some things that would be helpful to use in our volunteer placements. We also had a social one night every week where all the volunteers go out for dinner together. It is not required that you do this, if you wanted to stay by yourself the whole trip you could, but I did not. My favorite times were getting together with all the other volunteers and getting to know such a diverse crowd. We worked Monday through Friday, although my placement was very lenient and would allow us days off if we wanted, and then we had the weekends off to do whatever we pleased. I would typically travel with other volunteers. My host family was awesome, I absolutely loved them. I had a host dad, mom, and brother who I am still in communication with via Facebook. One other volunteer also lived in the same home as I did and traveled to the same school with me. I would definitely recommend Projects Abroad, especially for the first time volunteering abroad, they are very good and quick about orienting you and helping you fit right in to the culture. The only thing I didn't like about projects abroad was the price. It was a very expensive trip and a large portion of the money went to the Projects Abroad organization itself. My host family did not get paid as much as I expected, especially considering they provided us with all of our meals, laundry, and living. Its a good organization to support, the money is helping the organization expand across the world, but it was overall a pretty expensive trip. But if I had the opportunity to do it again I would in a heartbeat!