Monthly Archives: October 2010

Last week the Peace Corps celebrated its 50th Anniversary with a gathering at the University of Michigan. There is a great summary of the events on CFHI’s blog

It was at UM that John F. Kennedy spoke about a generation of young adults going abroad, making connections and giving service. The events on the anniversary of that day focused on continuing the movement, scaling-up and creating a lasting impact.

Everyone that has ever been a volunteer, been impacted by international service or supports international volunteering can now join this movement. Service World has a site where you can sign Declaration for International Service and write what your experiences have meant to you. Be part of the movement http://ourserviceworld.org/take-action/

The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizationsand Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) recently updated their Occasional Paper Series—Emerging Areas of Volunteering.

Voluntourism and international volunteering both received attention. The text made reference to “Cross National Volunteerism” and “VolunToursim”. There is a great summary of the text here.

As the summary text mentions. the main emerging trend in cross national volunteerism is the broadening the accessibility of international volunteer opportunities. While voluntourism is mentioned as a “mass marketing approach to service”.

The previously referenced blogger writes “While the tourism industry serves as the travel specialists, they realize that the overall effectiveness of VolunTourism rest with the nonprofit sector who must effectively engage and manage these traveling volunteers.” I think this is a key point when talking about international volunteering weather it is a  nonprofit or for profit organization placing a volunteer the effectiveness of the volunteer and the project she is working on in the community depends on who is engaging the community and the volunteers.

Some of the other volunteer areas highlighted included in the article compilation include:

• episodic volunteering
• virtual volunteering
• employee volunteer programs.