volunteer this summer?
 

Message: Message: Hi, I am a 26 year old female teacher traveling to Eastern Europe this summer. I will be in Berlin and Budapest visitng friends and family of a college friend and then will be traveling on my own for about 2 weeks after that. In my very limited time ( from about 8/1-8/8), I would love to volunteer in some capacity somwhere in Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, or Germany. I do not speak any of the languages needed, but, I could work with children, teach English, work for social services or social justice, or anything in the arts, particularly photograhy or drama. A few years ago, I volunteered at an orphange in Sikkim, India, teaching English and working with the girls. During the school year, I teach humanities at a middle-school charter school.

I know that my schedule is very limiting and my time short, but I'd love to do something during my stay that is worthwhile.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Thank you,

Sara

Sara!! Stop posting this question :)
It will be answered, just be patient.
((F))

Sorry- I thought I needed to post this on the countries I would be nearest to- I'm not impatient, just not too knowledgeable about the site. Sorry, again.

Sara, Don't know if you're checking both your threads. This reply was on the other thread. You can look to see who posted it.

"Message: try http://www.globalvolunteers.org/"

My reply is that you might check schools in the area, hospitals in the area and even your own local churches to see if they have any outreach missions where you are going.

Good luck.

Sara, there's just one Europe board. Any question about any country in Europe goes onto this one big board, not to the individual countries. The list of countries that you see at the top of your page is part of the search function, not the post function. Believe me, you're not the first person to try to post to separate countries. Fodors should make that aspect of the board more user-friendly, IMHO.

Scarlett's scolding fails to tell you how to find the answers you HAVE received. Click on your own name, "justretired" - - it's most likely the commonest reason re-post the same question repetitively - - not knowing how to re-locate the question(s) you aready posted.

Fodor's should do a better job of making sure that every new registrant (who first posts) understands this.

Best wishes,

Rex

Rex is right, in that new posters do not realizze, that all countries in Europe are here.
Welcome, justretired.

Several years ago a friend of mine soent part of a summer in Poland, I think teaching English to Polish children while her sons were in some kind of day camp with the Polish children. I can try to find out more if you're interested.

There were about two longish threads in the pat year or two about finding short-term volunteer opportunities for foreigners in Europe. Maybe you can find them. I know one of the projects that a poster had participated in was constructing a house for poor families in Portugal.

This is Sara's dad, actually. Sara's was just using our registration ("just retired") to save some time.

Thanks to everyone for explaining how this site works. The fact is, my wife and I are NOT new to it. We've posted with the topic "France" and "Spain" in the past. Yet after almost a year of use, we still didn't understand it fully.

What I just realized is that when posting a NEW message, you don't have to select only one "topic" (country). You can select one, scroll down the list, and hold the Control key while you select as many more as you want. Had we understood it better, that's what we would have advised Sara to do: post the message ONCE, but with multiple topics (countries) selected, so that it would show up in all those countries on a search.

Thanks to all for making this clear, and sorry the original advice we gave her caused clutter on the board.

- Larry

Here's one: http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34430162

And here's another: http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34477562

Hi, I have heard about an organization called Global Volunteers that has a reputation for being a good volunteer agency. I looked into it one time because I have always wanted to volunteer in the orphanages in Romania. Still haven't been able to do it. Anyway look on their website www.globalvolunteers.com for more info. I do know that they have a fee in the $2000 range, but they provide all of your education/orientation, room and board as well as transportation. Good luck with whatever you do.

Jeez, rex, thanks for saying that I "scolded" Sara!
The smiley face was there to show that I was only advising Sara to discontinue posting after the third thread, and to be patient, since they were posted minutes apart.
Speak for yourself regarding scolding, I cannot remember ever scolding someone on Fodors - until now!
I hope Sara appreciates the information I gave her and does not also think she was "scolded ".