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How Do You Volunteer Professional Services?

Posted by timothy on from the with-caution dept.

keefus_a writes "My wife and I usually take a week long vacation in the Spring and I tossed out the idea of volunteering abroad. Neither of us has a problem with doing manual labor, or whatever task is needed. However, I thought it might be of some value, and substantially more rewarding than our daily grind, if we could volunteer our professional services (I'm a network guy and my wife has a master's degree in counseling). The problem is that I haven't found any resources for doing so on a short-term basis. So I ask Slashdot. Has anyone ever done short-term volunteer work in your professional field? What organization did you contact? Or are we better off donating money to a particular cause and just working on a tan?"

2 of 366 comments (clear)

  1. Google is your friend! by Ed+Peepers · · Score: 4, Informative

    I did a quick search and found http://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/index.html and http://www.volunteermatch.org/. I haven't used either, so I'd be curious to know if somebody here has and what the experience was like.

  2. Doing service brings joy in life! by demerson3 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Serving others from the heart is far more rewarding to the soul than anything else I know.

    The International Association for Human Values is a large organization actively doing phenomenal work around the globe with very little overhead, but they are little-known in the US. Disaster relief, youth empowerment, forums for peace dialogs, community developemnt, environmental action, and rural education are some of the focuses of the organization.

    I've volunteered for a few organizations, and I've found that IAHV volunteers are consistently not only driven and hard-working, but also peaceful and wonderful to work with during the day.

    http://iahv.org/get_involved.asp
    http://iahv.org/show_address.asp?country=United%20States
    (flash warning... some pages work fine with gnash)

    What do you get more of, the more you give away? Love.
    Whatever you decide to do, I hope you have a wonderful time.