Ian at the World Travel Market

By Ian Birbeck, Recruiting Director - UK

This year Projects Abroad were invited to speak at the World Travel Market which is held annually at the Excel Centre, Docklands, London. It is a huge event which goes on over four days and brings together all sorts of people from within the travel industry. There are some amazing stands representing every part of the world. It is well worth going just to see the scale of the event.

On the Thursday of the event every year students are invited in to find out how to get to work in the travel industry. The Tourism Society approached Projects Abroad to find someone to speak to the students. I found myself speaking under the embarrassing title of “From volunteer to Recruitment Director of Projects Abroad”. It gave me the opportunity to show some pictures of me through the years from a young volunteer to an aging Recruitment Director! I included a few pictures of my fellow volunteer, Will Pashley first as a volunteer and then as Recruitment Director Australia.

The organiser of the conference was warm and welcoming explaining that I would be speaking after a few other speakers. One lady talked about how she got her role working at London City Airport, another talked about how to get a job working on the railways. I was waiting for the next speaker who hadn’t turned up. In walked two giant cartoon characters dressed in Busbies! It was a little bizarre to say the least as they came in hugging members of the audience and dancing down the aisles! After ten minutes I thought I was in trouble trying to settle the audience for my presentation.

They listened attentively maybe taken in by excited hand gestures I didn’t see until later on in the pictures. The 300 in the audience went away presumably bemused as to whether they ought to drive a train, dress up in a bizarre costume or aspire to a role working for Projects Abroad!

By Will Harper, Director - USA

Extra, extra read all about it! Projects Abroad is featured in the Dec. 7th issue of OK! magazine that is on newsstands now across the United States. If you flip to pages 62 and 63 you will some of our select projects they decided to profile like Teaching English in Cambodia, Building homes in Ghana and the Inca project in Peru. If you are traveling home or back to school after Thanksgiving break be sure to pick up your copy of OK! magazine and check us out!

By Scott McQuarrie, Director - Projects Abroad Pro

Projects Abroad are happy to announce the launch of a new initiative called Projects Abroad Pro. Projects Abroad Pro is the skilled and qualified arm of Projects Abroad. It has been created to encourage graduates, professionals on a career break and retired seniors to undertake voluntary work.

Seventeen years after we founded Projects Abroad, we have started Projects Abroad Pro. We are bringing all our experience and expertise, and all our contacts and influence, to ensure that volunteers with recognised skills and qualifications can contribute meaningfully in a wide variety of placements all over the developing world. We realise, as do our partners in the developing world, that many professionals don’t want to turn their life upside down and volunteer for years, so we will welcome you even if you can only join one of our programmes for 2 weeks or a month.

There is a great need for nurses, teachers, lawyers, doctors, social workers, journalists, physiotherapists, and people with many other qualifications and skills in the countries where we work.

Please take a look at our new website and pass it on to anyone you think may be interested – www.projects-abroad-pro.org.

Kids in Nepal (Courtesy of Alice Symonds)

By Harry Kent, Programme Advisor - UK

Being on the road one of the questions that always comes up is money and “How can I fundraise for this type of project?” I always reply with the same ideas for sponsored sporting events, writing to local councils, and even the odd cake sale. Unlike Alice Symonds I had never thought to approach the university and write a creative piece for their website.

By writing an account of her time away Alice earned herself the funds to travel to Nepal on a Teaching project.

To hear what she had to say log on to:

http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/318/international-study-17/student-profiles-288/profile-alice-symonds-work-experience-in-nepal-2315.html

Nepal (Courtesy of Alice Symonds)

Rob, Rob’s beard and Faye

By Will Harper, Director - USA

Unlike myself who hates to run more than 3 miles at a time, Rob Kidd and Faye Stickings (aka Kiddstick) from the UK office of Projects Abroad will be running the Istanbul Marathon on October 18th and fund raising on behalf of the CT Scanner Appeal for Worthing Hospital. They have raised over 1,000 Pounds so far but I am sure they would love any support you would be able to give. You can learn more about why they are running and can donate on their JustGiving page. Good luck guys!

While a good number of volunteers and interns go abroad with us individually a growing number of volunteers take part on custom designed group trips. You can learn more about these types of trips from the video below or HERE

By Thomas Pastorius, Director of Marketing - Pacific

The most famous example of Crowdsourcing is Wikipedia. By accepting the input from random web surfers, Wikipedia has built an Encyclopedia that rivals Britannica. Less famous, but more important, has been crowdsourcing’s impact on computer programming. Open Source programs like Firefox and Linux, which were created and tested primarily by amateur volunteers in their free time, have changed the business models of Microsoft and Cisco.

Crowdsourcing is about more than just computers: it’s about using groups of amateurs to solve a problem. In fact, crowdsourcing is the very same concept that Projects Abroad uses in setting up its self-funded service projects. Like the makers of Wikipedia and Firefox, Projects Abroad defines projects and creates the infrastructure that enables motivated amateur volunteers to do their work. By collecting and focusing the group’s efforts, Projects Abroad creates effective solutions at a fraction of the cost of traditional international development agencies.

Self-funded volunteering is changing the way that we think of international service work, just as open source software is changing the computer business. We’re both bringing down costs, involving a broader community of people, and creating a generation with real connections to a project that is bigger than any individual. As with most changes, some groups stand to lose in the revolution, and those groups will naturally fight against it. For example, Microsoft complains that Open Source programming does not produce quality products, that it exploits the contributions of individuals, and that it has a higher failure rate than other software endeavors. In the same way, traditional development charities and aid organizations complain about the quality and values of self-funded volunteering.

Contrary to their claims, the results speak for themselves. To start, take just the economic benefits of Projects Abroad: our 5,500 volunteers will create over $45 million of local expenditure in 2009 alone. Since this expenditure is not touristic or administrative, but is used mainly on locally provided services, a significantly higher than average multiplier effect should also be expected.

Moreover, the service work provided by our volunteers is well received. In fact, this week Dr. Peter Slowe, Founder and President of Projects Abroad, is presenting at the Conference on Tourism and the Third Sector in Neuchatel, Switzerland on this very topic. Dr. Slowe’s research indicates that 70% of our placements view the impact of our volunteers’ work as either “positive” or “strongly positive,” while only 11% considered it “negative” or “strongly negative.”

I believe that the 2000s will be remembered as the time when we discovered, as one of my idols James Surowiecki called it, The Wisdom of Crowds. We discovered that a group of motivated amateurs, when organized into the right structure, can effect enormous positive change and create innovative new solutions. Projects Abroad is an important part of this movement because it brings the power of crowdsourcing out of the computing world and into – not just the real world but – the parts of the real world that need it most.

Olga with her class in Namibia

By Olga Tymejczyk, Program Advisor - USA

Hi, I recently joined the New York City office as a Program Advisor and was asked to introduce myself to the Projects Abroad community on the blog. Here is the story of how I became fascinated with international exchange.

As I child, I quickly developed a keen interest in atlases and maps. I was desperate to find a theory behind the assignment of colors to different countries on a map (Do the green countries have a lot of trees?). Crushed by the realization that country colors vary by map, I started to collect postcards sent by family friends from abroad, looking up countries in an encyclopedia and trying to imagine the people of those unknown lands. I vividly remember my disbelief, as I was gazing at pictures of a huge stone city high up in the mountains. This memory came back to me years later, taking my breath away as I saw Machu Picchu with my own eyes after a 5-day trek through the Andes.

My upbringing in a Ukrainian family living in Poland, as well as high school education in a German high school, made me very sensitive to the subtleties of history and identities. Having studied the Polish-Ukrainian conflicts both in a Polish and a Ukrainian school, as well as World War II in Poland and in Germany, I became interested in the diversity of perceptions and cultures around the world. In an attempt to learn more about the world, its peoples, and their worldviews, I followed my sister’s advice and sought scholarships to American colleges.

Olga on a recent trip to Arizona

At the age of 19, I arrived in the US to start my freshman year at Harvard. I was thrilled to share a suite with a Muslim girl born in India, a daughter of Chinese immigrants, a girl of Jamaican heritage, as well a roommate from the exotic shore of New Jersey. Harvard and the US provided the thrill of learning about people different from me, eavesdropping on conversations in languages I couldn’t understand, and tasting foods I never imagined existed.

I chose to be a Latin American Studies major, because it promised to be an exposure to a yet another reality that I never got the chance to experience. My first trip while in college, however, was to Namibia. I traveled to that beautiful country as a volunteer English and IT teacher, but it was me who probably learned the most. While trying to share my knowledge with local children and teachers, I received an invaluable lesson about the value of international exchange. I was changed forever by living the life of a community that showed me how to do the best out of one’s circumstances and how to keep working for a better tomorrow.

Olga near Lanquin, Guatemala

I also had an amazing experience in Peru, whose kind people gave me a chance to become their friend despite my command of maybe 200 words in Spanish at the time. Encouraged by the openness of those strangers-now-friends, I decided to spend a semester in Argentina, at the University of Buenos Aires. Although the language barrier and differences in educational systems made for a rough adjustment period, I became fascinated with the passionate student body and the outspoken Argentinean population, not afraid to go out to the streets to make their voices heard. Long discussions about history and society with my wonderful host family revealed the side of Argentina I could have never experienced as a tourist. I left after 6 months with a pain in my heart, but also with a passion for tango, dulce de leche, and even the rhythms of cumbia villera (mate and famous Argentinean steak - not so much).

A recent experience that made me even more eager to explore the world was an internship with a Brazilian NGO. For two months, I did field research in public policy and lived with a family who were part of Brazil’s large Japanese population. This mixing of two different worlds at first gave me a headache, but turned out to be a wonderful lesson of diversity.

I’m very excited to join the Projects Abroad team! I look forward to getting to know everyone and helping make international experience happen for many more people around the world!

Dear loyal readers,

I just wanted to update everyone that I will be flying to Peru on this escorted flight from New York -JFK with an excited group of 2 week summer special volunteers this Saturday. Besides helping with the escorted flight I will be visiting our different programs in country, meeting staff members and speaking with volunteers which won’t leave a lot of time for the blog. But don’t fear I will update as often as I can and I will schedule several posts over the next week or so to keep you entertained and informed. Plus you can expect a flurry of activity when I return in two weeks.

This also gives me the opportunity to post a couple of photos from Rob, our Director in Canada. After reading through Scott’s trip report to Jamaica and his recreation of Laurens’ now infamous waterfall picture, he sent along these photos of him at Machu Picchu where he tried to recreate a photo that has been widely used in our promotional materials and fair stands. Below is the famous photo:

And here are Rob’s recreations. He “claims” that Machu Picchu is 100% behind the clouds but I am a little skeptical……

Take 1

Take 2

Not only will I be exploring a new country but I will also try my hand at recreating this photo. Hopefully there will be no clouds when I visit Machu Picchu, fingers crossed!

Safe travels,

Will

Craig with his work colleagues at ‘The Daily Voice’

By Craig Ferriman, Programme Advisor - Projects Abroad UK

I’m Craig Ferriman and the newest member of the UK office in Sussex on England’s beautiful South Coast. I’m here over the summer period in the UK recruitment team working on various things including the development of the Projects Abroad Groups website and will be attending many of the school and college fairs to attract interest in students thinking about volunteering abroad.

My association began with Projects Abroad about eighteen months ago when I booked to travel to South Africa as the first Journalism volunteer. I spent two months in South Africa’s mother city, Cape Town, and it was an incredibly life changing experience. My host family were victims of the oppressive apartheid regime and spent the majority of their lives in the grim Cape Flats saving up in the belief that they may one day be allowed to live where they chose. Their wish came true and they now live in a leafy, suburban part of Cape Town. The stories they told me were extraordinary. I spent my days with reporters on the province’s only tabloid – ‘The Daily Voice’ – covering all manner of hard news. I scooped a front page story and a double page exclusive in my time as well as twelve other articles. My notions about the ethics of Journalism were challenged and my writing style was honed but more than that my eyes were considerably opened to the corruption of Southern African politics and the extreme poverty with which so many Capetonians live in.

Craig ostrich riding

I was originally born in Newcastle but relocated to Southampton at the age of eleven and spent the duration of my secondary school there. I took a year out after school working and travelling (including my time in South Africa with Projects Abroad). When I returned from travelling to the UK, I started my first of three years at Queen Mary College, University of London doing a BA in English Literature.

Since last October I have been attending fairs and giving talks at schools, colleges and universities attracting attention and interest in volunteering with us overseas. It is my pleasure to be spending time in the UK office this summer with a friendly and warm group of individuals who have been most welcoming. No two days are ever the same with the Ghana and Bolivia Directors, Tom Davis and Daniela Viljoen having already passed through and Recruitment Directors, Tom Pastorius, Rob Levine and Frank Seidel joining us in the office. Who knows who’ll pop by next?