13 Facts About International volunteering

International volunteering is when volunteers contribute their time to work for organisations or causes outside their respective home countries.

International volunteering has a long association with international development, with the aim of bringing benefits to host communities.

Trends show that international volunteering has become increasingly popular across many countries over the past few decades.

International volunteering is a broad term which is used to capture multi-year, skilled placements as well as short term roles.

The term voluntourism has become common to describe certain types of volunteering organised by governments, charities and travel agents.

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Formal overseas International volunteering can be traced back over one hundred years to when the British Red Cross set up the Voluntary Aid Detachment scheme in 1909.

One of the most prominent organisations, Service Civil International volunteering, organised workcamps from 1920 on as a form of post-war reconciliation and was formally established in 1934.

Up to the mid-20th century overseas International volunteering projects were mainly undertaken by people with direct connections to a particular cause and were considered more as short term in nature.

The more formal inception of international volunteering organisations can be linked to organisations such as Australian Volunteers International which formed in 1951, International Voluntary Services in 1953 in the United States, and Voluntary Services Overseas in 1958 the United Kingdom.

Measuring the outcomes of international volunteering is an ongoing challenge.

The present structures of international volunteering are often aimed at impacts on a local, community scale which is sharply in contrast with the macro-political government strategies of the colonial era.

Participants are often young adults, the length of the trip is often categorized as short term, and the International volunteering is regularly packaged with adventure and travel activities.

International volunteering's theory is rooted in the same idea, in which he describes West's patronizing portrayals of the East.