| An Interview with a TrueTraveller |
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| Written by The Wandering Wahba, Martin J. |
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Having started a site with a heavy focus on voluntary work, I’m guessing it is fairly safe to assume that you have some volunteering experience yourself? Tell us about it! Where did you go, what did you do, when, why and what did you make of it? My longest volunteering trips were in Argentina and Thailand. In Argentina, I did a six-month internship with the Center for Human Rights and the Environment (CEDHA) in connection with a Canadian Government program. I received a position with the Hispanic Development Council in Canada who partnered with CEDHA. I was a project manager for their Corporate Social Responsibility program, which involved policy work as well as organizing activities to neutralize the organization’s greenhouse gas emissions. In Thailand, I spent six months as a volunteer for Right to Play, where my colleague and I coordinated sport and play programs on two refugee camps – one essentially a physical education program implemented through a school, the other an after-school program where kids could learn sports and then have a chance to play. Although the placements were very different, I really enjoyed them both. I think the main thing is that they offered the opportunity to work directly with locals and become immersed in the culture, two of my favorite things to do when travelling. Have you got any future volunteering or travel plans? I am taking a year off from work starting in October. I will be heading to Peru to volunteer with Right to Play for the first two months. After that, I am not sure what is next. I am open to suggestion and will be maintaining a blog. If you could pick freely amongst the volunteering projects you know about, or even make one up yourself, what would you do? There are a number of great programs out there. I really like the work of Right to Play and also Kiva. They are bigger organizations so they have a number of opportunities. But there are a number of interesting looking grassroots organizations that I hope to explore over the next year. Do you have any advice to share with anyone considering to do a volunteering placement similar to what you have already done? Any words of wisdom or warning? Words of Wisdom – Have an open mind and prepare to be flexible as things will be very different than you expect. When we were interviewed by The Bucketlist a short while back, we were asked a question that I quite liked, and I’m going to go ahead and ask you something similar: In your experiences as both a volunteer and the creator of True Travellers Society, do you think there is any area/s that organisations as a general need to improve, perhaps in terms of the information they provide? I think organizations are limited by their financial and human resources. The internet places a lot of demands and expectations on grassroots organizations which are very difficult to meet. I think people need to understand that and dig a little deeper to try and find information on their own. What is the main aim of True Travellers Society? Who is your target audience, and what do you provide them with? True Travellers Society was developed to connect people to no or minimal fee meaningful and volunteer travel opportunities around the globe. We have created a central location where this information can be shared for free. Our audience is anyone who is interested in travelling and is looking for a different way to travel. On TTS you give your visitors the possibility of submitting content – be it volunteer opportunities, organisations or simply relevant information. Do you have any favourite articles or quotes amongst what has been submitted? I don’t think I’d say I have a favorite article. My favorite thing to see on the site is when individuals are making connections with organizations. That seems to be happening a lot more with the new website. Here are a couple links I find quite interesting: |
Some of you may have heard of 
