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A Bookworm's Guide to Volunteering Abroad Reading
 
Chicken Soup for the Volunteer's Soul: 101 | From the Publisher
At times, we may feel overwhelmed by a complex world, yet we know that deep within each one of us lies the ability to step up and care for those in need. Chicken Soup for the Volunteer's Soul has the power to tap into this natural capability. These stories from everyday people in the United States and around the globe will inspire you to embrace all the good you can do with just the slightest effort. Or perhaps you're already a member of the volunteer world and simply want to wrap your eyes around the most poignant stories from the front lines of fellow givers. Regardless of your station in life, this heartfelt collection captures the defining moment of touching kindness that can transcend into developing your own personal growth and spiritual awareness. Whether you are a volunteer or not, Chicken Soup for the Volunteer's Soul will leave an indelible imprint on your heart. We urge you to find that story that will compel you to give to the world -- or continue giving -- all the good you can do! |  
How to Live Your Dream of Volunteering Overseas | From the Publisher
How to Live Your Dream of Volunteering Overseas is the first comprehensive guide to international volunteerism for Americans of all ages -- from college students to senior citizens. Joseph Collins, Stefano DeZerega, and Zahara Heckscher -- all founders of respected volunteer organizations -- share everything you need to know about volunteering in Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. |  
Alternatives to the Peace Corps: A Directory of Third World and U.S. Volunteer Opportunities | From the Publisher
With over one hundred listings of organizations in both the United States and the Third World, the thoroughly revised and updated Alternatives to the Peace Corps gives the prospective volunteer the most complete guide ever. Along with resources for volunteering, Alternatives to the Peace Corps includes a critique of the Peace Corps and other United States government-based aid organizations, common questions confronting volunteers, and a guide on evaluating volunteer opportunities.
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Volunteer Vacations: Short-Term Adventures That Will Benefit You and Others | From the Publisher
A volunteer experience is the best way to travel, combine personal growth and philanthropy, and get to know other cultures and people by helping them. The seventh edition of this classic adventure travel guide lists more than 2,000 projects worldwide that need volunteers. Detailed organization profiles provide contact information, project locations and objectives, costs, dates, and application instructions. Cross-referenced indexes help travelers plan according to cost, destination, length of vacation, season, and type of project. Vignettes from volunteers take the reader on-site, describing the type of work that was done, the people met, and lessons learned from volunteering. |  
Habitat for Humanity: How to Build a House | From the Publisher
Available for the first time, Habitat for Humanity How to Build a House is a complete, step-by-step guide to building a house from the world's leading authority on community home building. Presented documentary-style, each process is illustrated with full-color photos — 330 in all — shot exclusively for this book and accompanied by clear, authoritative and friendly text. An ideal book for beginners as well as more experienced builders, Habitat for Humanity How to Build a House covers everything you need to know about building an efficient, affordable, quality house, including information on building codes, building inspections, energy efficiency, professional building techniques and tools and materials. Taunton Press sponsored the building of the house featured in this book and 15% of the net sales of this book will be donated to Habitat for Humanity. |  
The Volunteer | From the Publisher
Rutledge Jordan is looking for redemption. A Peace Corps worker finishing up a monastic two-year stint in Tanzania, he teaches villagers how to build fish ponds. He is a long way from his previous life in Memphis, Tennessee - a life of legal briefs and expositions, sweaty infidelities, and a wrecked engagement. In the lush Usambara Mountains, Jordan hopes to start over. Despite his labors, the sins of his past revisit him in the form of a beautiful young school girl named Zanifa. Promised to a wealthy, Oxford-educated African prince, she awaits her marriage and forced ritual mutilation with a mixture of hope and resignation. But Jordan becomes outraged, refusing to accept the girl's fate. And as his initial attraction to Zanifa grows into an obsession, he decides her only salvation lies in her seduction... Now the cycle of passion and vengeance is set in motion and the prince will demand his own cruel revenge. In a desperate and determined final gesture of love, Jordan takes a risk at once noble, foolhardy, and terrifying. And in a shocking conclusion, the price of love and justice will be levied and paid. |  
Caring Hands: Inspiring Stories of Volunteer Medical Missions | From the Publisher
In the late nineteenth century, a group of idealistic Norwegians founded a small hospital in Minnesota. Since then, Fairview Health Services has grown into a world-class healthcare system known for its strong traditions of service and international volunteerism. Nowhere is this commitment more apparent than in the medical missions program of Fairview Foundation. Whether digging wells in Kosovo, treating children in Nepal, or feeding the starving people of Sudan, volunteers regularly offer medical education, technology, equipment, and skills to strangers who can never repay them. These volunteers touch the lives of tens of thousands of needy people every year. They travel by plane, bus, truck, foot, and canoe, bringing much-needed medical relief to developing and war-torn nations around the globe. By putting their talents and idealism to work, they exemplify the very best of human values: service for a better world. |  
The Universal Benefits of Volunteering: A Practical Workbook for NonProfit Organizations, Volunteers, and Corporations | From the Publisher
This comprehensive book/disk set provides not-for-profit leaders, for-profit business executives, individual volunteers, community leaders, and others with the systematic, hands-on guidance they need to maximize the benefits of volunteering for everyone involved, from front-line volunteers to community members. Focusing on the crucial concept of "return value," the workbook offers solid practical advice on recruiting, training, and retaining today's volunteers. It examines volunteer program planning and implementation for both not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. And, most importantly, it explores how these entities can forge strategic alliances that match the nonprofit need for motivated, business-wise volunteers to the corporate desire to boost staff teamwork, time management, and other key skills. |  
Experiencing Peace Corps as a Volunteer over Age 60 | |  
Volunteer with the Poor in Peru | |  
Volunteering in Ethiopia; A Peace Corps Odyssey | |  
Two Years in the Kingdom: The Adventures of an American Peace Corps Volunteer in Northeast Thailand | From the Publisher
Two Years in the Kingdom is a lighthearted yet informative look at life in Thailand, from the perspective of an American Peace Corps Volunteer. Part personal narrative and part essay, the book is a chronicle of the author's two years in Pakham, a rural village in the littlest-known part of the Thai Kingdom—the hot, Lao-speaking northeast known colloquially as Isaan. Written with the visiting foreigner in mind, Two Years provides a candidly honest and instructive look into rural Thai lifeways, foods, languages, and customs. |  
Green Volunteers:The World Guide to Voluntary Work in Nature | From the Publisher
"Lists almost 200 projects and organisations through which volunteers can work - without previous experience - year round, with marine mammals, sea turtles, primates, and a wide range of wildlife in National Park, rainforests, and a variety of unusual locations in the five continents." "For those who have limited time but wish to experience a unique holiday, the guide lists many projects lasting from one to three weeks in the US, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and all over the world." Green Volunteers also identifies opportunities for volunteers to spend longer periods of work and study on projects which can last from one month to a year or more. It is also an excellent tool for finding thesis or research opportunities. |  Volunteer Tourism: Experiences That Make a Difference | From the Publisher
Volunteer tourism describes a field of tourism, in which travelers visit a destination and take part in projects in the local community. Projects are commonly nature-based, people-based or involve restoration of buildings and artifacts (e.g. restoration of a Buddhist temple in Mongolia). |  Volunteers against Conflict: United Nations Volunteers | From the Publisher
This volume is the result of collaboration between United Nations Volunteers (UNV) and the Humanitarianism and War Project of the Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Institute for International Studies, Brown University, USA. It is the expression of the substantial involvement of UNV in UN peace-keeping and humanitarian operations. Its purpose is to convey a better understanding of the work of UN volunteers in conflict situations. This book, the first of its kind, brings together the experiences of individual UN volunteer specialists who served in a wide range of recent UN missions. This "ground's-eye view" of some of the most ambitious and important UN initiatives is a collection of firsthand accounts written by the volunteers themselves. Thomas G. Weiss and Larry Minear, co-directors of the Humanitarianism and War Project, place the experience conveyed by the chapters in their broader historical and institutional context and offer some reflections on the UNV experience for the international community as a whole. Beginning with a brief history of events leading up to the genesis and development of the UN mission, each chapter describes the UN volunteer's involvement, along with the personal experiences of volunteers who lived and worked in Cambodia, South Africa, Mozambique, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Somalia. The chapters bear witness to the vitality of volunteerism and include volunteers' own assessments of their participation and the lessons they learned. |  
World Volunteers: The World Guide to Humanitarian and Development Volunteering | From the Publisher
"How to choose the most suitable project to match your interests and abilities and became a volunteer in a developing country. A guide for students, retirees, doctors or accountants, nurses or agronomists, surveyors or teachers, plumbers or builders, electricians or computer operators... For everyone who wants to get involved in helping those who suffer worldwide." "For people with no previous international experience, dozens of humanitarian work-camp opportunities lasting up to one month, in Africa, Asia, Latin American and Eastern Europe. Share the experience with young people from all over the world." "Projects lasting up to a month in developing countries where any professional experience is precious. An opportunity to spend a unique working holiday the benefits of which do not end after your return home." "The guide lists many organisations offering the chance to work in developing countries from a few months to several years. A chance to begin a new life, or to pass on your skills and experience at the end of a long professional career." A detailed annotated list of useful websites and of e-mail newsletters for constant updates via the Internet. The information gives advice on how to become a volunteer including preparation, expectations, along with the tools for finding more opportunities on the Internet. Everyone - including those who are new to international volunteering - can plan an experience overseas. |  
In Search of the Elusive Peace Corps Moment: Destination: Estonia | About the Author
Douglas Wells graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1987. After a series of unfulfilling jobs, he joined the first group of US Peace Corps Volunteers sent to the Former Soviet Union. His inspiring stories of life on a rural island outpost behind the recently fallen iron curtain have been retold in the Associated Press, on Voice of America, and by televangelist Dr. Robert Schuller as a testimony to God's unyielding grace. Mr. Wells' writings have also appeared in numerous periodicals, including Reader's Digest. Shortly after leaving the Peace Corps, Douglas Wells joined the U.S. Department of State and is now a diplomat posted at the American Consulate in Hong Kong, China. |  
Power Lines: Two Years on South Africa's Borders | From the Publisher
"Power lines pass over the town of Lochiel, South Africa. When Jason Carter arrived, the power lines of First-World South Africa ran directly through the village in the former black homeland...but the homes had no electricity." In the aftermath of apartheid, few whites live as Peace Corps volunteer Jason Carter did - with a black family in a Third-World community. As he shows us, deprivation and illiteracy are formidable foes adding to the centuries-old legacy of oppression and mistrust that still casts its long shadow across a South African society struggling to redefine itself in the years following Nelson Mandela's presidency. |  
Healing the World One by One: Reflections on Third World Encounters | From the Publisher
In this age of globe-spanning charitable and relief organizations, can the ordinary individual still make a difference? In HEALING THE WORLD ONE BY ONE, men and women, blue and white collar workers, doctors and housewives, students and retirees answer with a resounding YES! Joyful and sad, poignant and unforgettable, these firsthand accounts of teeming streets of Mexican barrios, backward hospitals of Vietnam, canoe accessible dwellings of Honduras, sewerless villages of China and dangerous bush country of Tanzania chronicle not only medical help and American good will, but individual journeys of discovery through faith and serving others. The narrators—all commonplace Americans belonging to the interdenominational Volunteers in Medical Missions—leave the comfort and safety of home to face challenges and adventure as they bring help and hope to the less privileged. In each instance, a community of strangers from various religious denominations and walks of life merges into a cohesive team. A sunburned midwestern farmer, a shy single mother, a visionary southern doctor, a hard-working trucker, a tortured Vietnam veteran, a retired auditor and other everyday Americans demonstrate that one person can make a difference. Susan Alexis lived and worked in Mexico for seventeen years, holds a Masters degree in Spanish, and has served as interpreter with VIMM teams in Nicaragua, Peru, Honduras, Ecuador and Venezuela. | 
Never the Same Again: A History of VSO | From the Publisher
The complete history of the Voluntary Service Overseas, Europe's largest volunteer agency. Using personal accounts the book explores its history, looking at the experiences of founder Alec Dickson, differing attitudes to the service and the vital work done by volunteers abroad. |  
International Directory of Volunteer Work | From the Publisher
International Voluntary Work includes information on thousands of voluntary placements worldwide.
Part I - Residential Work Worldwide - Includes such placements as: organic farming in Hawaii; nursing in Chile; teaching English to Indian orphans; Bee-keeping in Hungary; working with street children in Brazil; rescuing wild animals in Thailand.
Part II - Non-Residential Work in the UK and USA - includes: caring for seal pups in Cornwall; helping to re-house homeless people; planting trees in San Francisco; befriending a disabled child; assisting at a film festival in Birmingham; preparing food for dolphins in Florida.
There are over 700 organizations wanting help from all types of people for all types of work. |  
So, You Want to Join the Peace Corps: What to Know before You Go | From the Publisher
So you're looking into joining the Peace Corps and you've got questions galore. Will you have running water? How will the culture shock affect you? Will your work schedule allow you time to travel and explore the region in which you're stationed? Dillon Bannerjee spent two years as a volunteer in Cameroon and offers an insider's perspective on the organization, the work, the joys, the trials, and the tribulations. So, You Want to Join the Peace Corps provides the real scoop only a returned volunteer has access to—a far cry from the "official" information that the government prints. If you're eager to know what the Peace Corps experience is really like, you've come to the right place. * The Peace Corps receives over 150,000 inquiries about applications each year
* Includes a detailed analysis of the application process |  
International Directory of Voluntary Work | |  
Man Who Tried to Save the World: The Dangerous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Fred Cuny | From the Publisher
Fred Cuny spent his life in terrible places. In countries rent by war, earthquake, famine, and hurricane, Cuny saved hundreds of thousands of lives with a fearlessness that amazed all who knew him. A Texan, a teller of tall tales, a womanizer, and a renegade, Cuny grew ever more daring in his globe-trotting adventures as his motivations became murkier. Was he a danger junkie? A CIA spy? Or a man who truly believed he had the wits and courage to save the world? After twenty-five years of heroic work that earned Cuny the nickname "Master of Disaster," he set off to the rogue Russian republic of Chechnya, a land of gangsters and Islamic terrorists, a quasi-state engaged in an unimaginably savage war with a Russian army of drunken, brutal incompetents. Cuny went to try to stop the war, but for the first time in his life he was scared, unsure of himself in an insane landscape where betrayal and murder lurked behind every face. He failed to stop the horror, yet soon returned to Chechnya on a mysterious mission. Cuny was last seen on a lonely mountain road, headed for a rebel fortress that was being subjected to the most intense artillery bombardment since World War II. War correspondent Scott Anderson became obsessed with Cuny's fate, and ventured into the deadly war zone himself in search of answers to several haunting questions: Whom was Cuny working for? What happened to him, and why? Most powerfully, what sort of man believes he can save the world? |  
Archaeo-Volunteers: The World Guide to Archaeological and Heritage Volunteering (We Care Guides Series) | From the Publisher
The ideal resource for those who want to experience the excitement of an archaeological excavation. The guide lists sites of 200 projects in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, where no previous experience is required. Excavations range from Palaeochristian churches in Jordan, to the sites of the first native Americans in Alaska to defence walls on a Venetian island. For young people and students, the guide provides an extensive list of workcamps and workcamp organisation networks, with hundreds of opportunities to preserve cultural heritage worldwide. You can share the experience with other young people from all over the world. Projects cover rebuilding dry stone walls in Italy and Greece, restoring castles in France, and preserving US historical sites in National Parks etc. Dozens of field schools are listed for those who want to learn more about archaeology and excavation techniques. Field schools range from Roman digs in the UK, Italy or the Middle East to an underwater archaeology school for divers in Sicily, and from palaeontology excavation techniques in western Canada to Mayan temples in Belize. University credit may be obtained from most of the field schools. A detailed annotated list of useful websites allows you to find even more opportunities in heritage restoration and preservation, volunteering in museums, and discovering other archaeological excavations. An extended list of links is constantly updated on the guide's website (see instructions inside). The introduction gives all the information on how to start and what to expect. |  
The Peace Corps Experience: Challenge and Change, 1969-1976 | From the Publisher
A former deputy director of the Peace Corps offers both a first-hand look at life in the agency - in the field and at headquarters - and a radical reinterpretation of its history during the Nixon and Ford administrations. By the end of the 1960s, the Peace Corps was in disarray. Debate raged over its effectiveness, and many new volunteers embraced the anti-establishment behavior of the day's youth. When President Nixon appointed Joseph Blatchford as director in 1969, some insiders felt the agency's days were numbered - especially when Blatchford set about re-evaluating the Peace Corps' mission and initiated a program called New Directions to reorient its work. Many observers simply lump Blatchford's efforts with the failures and faults of the Nixon administration. David Searles, however, contends that the new director's initiatives revitalized the Peace Corps and made it more relevant. He relates the history of these policies and their implementation in the field, drawing on his experience as country director for the Peace Corps in the Philippines. He shows how, despite constant carping from veterans of the early Peace Corps and much furor at headquarters, New Directions re-energized the agency and renewed and reaffirmed the Peace Corps' mission. |  
The Peace Corps in Cameroon | From the Publisher
The Peace Corps was established in 1961 during the Kennedy administration, symbolizing a new direction in foreign policymaking for the United States. Founded on large aid programs staffed by volunteers, the agency's primary goal was to help modernize Third World countries while guarding against the expansion of communism. Julius A. Amin interprets the motives behind the development of the Peace Corps and analyzes the program and performance of its volunteers in Cameroon during the 1960s. He bases his study on previously unused primary sources, including the completed questionnaires of returned volunteers and the diaries and letters they donated to him. He also provides extensive interviews conducted in Cameroon where, as a student, he was taught by the volunteers and later worked as their colleague. Amin finds that the volunteers contributed greatly to the social and educational development of Cameroon and made many new American friends within the host country. On a broader level, they learned about themselves and other people, and returned to the United States determined to reeducate Americans about Africa. Amin notes, however, that the volunteers expressed difficulty in justifying the ideals of American democracy to the Cameroonians in light of such issues as racism in America and U.S. intervention in Vietnam. Washington policymakers have seldom involved returned volunteers in discussions concerning the Third World. Amin believes that the volunteers could be invaluable in stimulating a renewed friendship between America and Third World countries, and in helping to explain why programs designed to assist Third World development often fail at the implementation stage. The Peace Corps in Cameroon also contains a comparative analysis of the agency's work in the neighboring countries of Ghana and Guinea, where its efforts were not as successful. In addition, it features numerous photographs of volunteers at work in Cameroon and maps to complement the text. |
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