AidCamps International

Short Term Volunteer Work Overseas on Third World Development Aid Projects

Independent AidCamps

What's Involved

Independent AidCamps are individual placements where we try and match your requirements with those of our local partner organisations and the communities they serve.

You tell us where and when you'd like to volunteer and what sort of work you'd like to do and we'll interact with our partner organisations to determine if they have a corresponding need.  If they do we'll arrange an appropriate placement for you.

Independent AidCamps are mostly suitable for self-reliant individuals and couples. In some cases we can arrange placements for small groups or families.  Our Independent AidCamps service is a personalised one; we will work with you and our partners to arrange the sort of placement you are looking for.

This doesn't mean we can arrange anything, anytime, anywhere; we're a charity, not a travel agent, and we won't "invent" a placement just because that's what you want to do.  All assignments must fit a genuine need of our partner organisations and local communities.

Please see the descriptions of our AidCamp countries for details of the sorts of placements possible in each location. What follows is a general overview.

Options

Where: we can arrange placements in all of our project countries. Whether you want to work and live in a city or in a remote village is up to you, although not all possibilities are available in all countries.

When: more or less any time you choose. Of course, your choice may be affected by practical constraints (e.g. no point in going out to teach during local school holidays), or the schedules of our partner organisations.

How Long: usually 1 week to 3 months. If you want to go for longer, talk to us.

The Work: your choice. You let us know what you'd like to do and we'll try and match that with the needs of our local partner organisations and their communities.

There's a wide range of possibilities of both skilled and unskilled work available. The descriptions of our AidCamp countries lists some "off the shelf" possibilities that our partners have a constant need for, but it's not limited to just those.

In particular, if you have a specific skill or experience that you think might be beneficial to our partners or to local development, ask.

As well as working directly with our partners or local communities, there are also possibilities, by special arrangement, for research trips if want to undertake some local research or studies as part of a degree.

Volunteer Matching Service

Our volunteer matching service matches people to people and people to future opportunities. It offers you:

• The opportunity to be matched up with other volunteers with similar requirements to you, if you'd like to share your time there or join/create a small team, and/or
• Notification of new volunteer opportunities that may fit your requirements, and the option to apply for one at no further cost, if we can't offer you what you want straight away but believe it's the sort of placement that may come up.

Fees, Donations, and Your Costs

To undertake an Independent AidCamp we ask you for a small registration fee and a donation. You can fundraise these or dig into your own bank account, we don't mind!

Registration Fee: we only ask for a small registration fee of £45 for organising an Independent AidCamp for you.

If we cannot offer you a placement fitting your stated requirements within 10 days, then you can either:

• get a refund, or
• enrol into our Volunteer Matching Service

Enrolment to the Volunteer Matching Service until we can offer you a place (one year maximum) is included in the registration fee, which is non-refundable once the service is entered.

Donation: our primary purpose as a charity is to provide development aid to needy communities in developing countries and we are totally unashamed in asking you to make a financial donation towards this goal.

The difference between a general donation to most charities and your Independent AidCamp donation is that you get to choose how the majority of your donation will be used (subject to agreement of course).

As part of your placement you will be told of the most pressing local needs and the cost of fulfilling each of them, and have the opportunity to decide which of those needs you'd like to fund.

For example, let's say it's agreed that you will teach English in a rural primary school.  The school might be short of teaching materials, books, etc, the children may be in rags and in need of school uniforms, while the lack of a clean water supply in the village is resulting in children often being off school sick.

Not only do you get to choose which of these you want to provide but, where possible, you'll also get involved in the purchasing and delivery of your aid - a real and direct opportunity to make your donation happen.

The minimum donation varies with how long you want to stay. The first £100 is split equally between the local partner organisation you will be working with and AidCamps International as a charitable donation to help fund both organisations' work.

100% of the rest goes directly to the objective(s) agreed with you.

We ask that at least £200 be used to provide for needs within the community of your placement, and agreed before you go.  Agree what you'd like to fund with the rest (if any) either beforehand or when you are there.

Your Costs: You cover all your own costs directly while in-country, in the local currency, as well as your pre-departure costs such as flights, visas, etc.

Typical in country costs are listed in the descriptions of our AidCamp countries, and we'll help you in planning and budgeting your stay, so you know how much to take with you.

In addition to your personal costs we also ask you to cover any created costs - those that others incur solely due to your presence. Our philosophy is that you being there shouldn't cost either our partners or the local communities anything. You are, after all, there to give, not to take.

For example, if our partner organisation kindly offers to take you to see some local scenic spot one afternoon, please cover their fuel costs.  Or if you want to go off sightseeing one weekend and ask someone in the community to be your guide, pay their travel, food, and accommodation costs, and give them something for themselves.

The volunteer work you choose may also create costs, e.g. if your choice needs you to have a full time translator or assistant.  People costs in our project countries are very cheap by western standards, typically less than £2 per day, and these will be discussed with you in arranging your placement.

Practicalities

Local Living: as you'll be covering your own living costs in-country you have the freedom to make your own choices as to the style of your stay - subject, of course, to availability, practicality, and your budget.

Possible options range from "homestays", where you live in the community with a local family, to the partner organisation's guesthouse, to local hostels, to western style hotels.

It's up to you. Not all choices are available everywhere, or practical for every assignment, but if you look at the descriptions of our AidCamp countries and let us know your preferences, we'll see what can be arranged.

Typical "no frills" living costs, staying in a homestay or the partner organisation's guesthouse, food included, are around £30-35 per week.

Local class hotels, simple but of a reasonable standard, with (usually) private shower and toilet, are typically around £5-£15 a night for the room.  Western class hotels, where available, are, of course, more expensive.

Food: you'd better be flexible about your food, as even if you eat out all the time, you'll find the choices limited.  Local diets in our Asian project countries tend to be mostly vegetarian and spicy, while Africans like heavy meat based meals.  If you have any special dietary requirements it's best that you talk to us before you sign up.

Arrival and Departure: all of our partners offer an arrival and departure service to get you from the airport to your placement, with an introduction to our partner on the way, and then back to the airport at the end.

Exactly what this consists of and the cost varies depending on local factors, such as how close the partner's base is to the international airport, what times of day you arrive/leave, and where your placement will be.  This typically ranges £15-£45 each way.

On arrival you'll be picked up from the airport and taken to our partner's base (which may involve a hotel stay on the way), where you'll spend a day or two meeting our partner, getting to know their work, and preparing for your assignment.  You'll then be taken to the location of your placement and introduced, and settled in ready to start the next day.

On departure it's basically the reverse, finishing off with being taken to the airport for your flight home, or to a bus or train station if you want to go off travelling.

Language: depending upon the assignment you choose you might need to communicate in the local language, either at work or with your hosts.  You can deal with this either by hiring a local translator or by learning the language yourself, or a combination.

Our partner organisations can arrange language lessons for you at very reasonable cost.  A full time intensive course for a couple of weeks is particularly suitable if you're planning on staying for a longer period.

Pre-Application Reflection

Please think carefully about if an Independent AidCamp will really be suitable for you.  We don't want to put you off, but we do want you to be realistic and reflect on what it's really going to be like living and working in these places.

You've probably thought about the practical and physical aspects, and decided you can easily handle using a squat toilet and taking bucket showers, but what about emotional and psychological factors?

While you will find most of the people you will work with to be very friendly, you should be aware that you will be constantly surrounded by extreme poverty everywhere, and considerable squalor in the cities.

Also, you could be somewhere where you rarely see members of our partner organisation and there are very few people that speak English, and even with those that do you might well find that you have nothing in common with them.

Full immersion is undoubtedly the best way to get to know a people and their culture, but it also the most challenging.

It could be a very enriching experience, or a very lonely one, and that depends on you.  Whether you have a fantastic time or a miserable one will depend much more on these aspects than on the day-to-day physical ones.

You'll need to be self-reliant, patient, have a good sense of humour, and the ability to easily get on well with people.

You'll need to be flexible, easy going, tolerant, and prepared to leave your pre-conceptions and ideas of the "right" way to do things behind.

Keep in mind that probably the most valuable thing you will achieve in your stay is what you'll learn about yourself.

If your reflection fills you with uncertainty, contact us to chat about it and discuss options -- or consider a Group AidCamp where you'll be able to share your experience with other like-minded volunteers.