More and more young people are taking on volunteer work nowadays.
Some even travel to the other side of the world and do unpaid work for a charity or other non-profit organisation there. They help to build homes for poor families, teach children 5 English, take care of orphans, or help to protect an endangered species.
A number of charity groups organise educational programmes for children around the world.
They teach subjects like 10 English and Mathematics to children while staying in their community and getting to know the people and their culture.
Several charity organisations help build houses or schools for poor children around the world. In the village of Kamakwie in Sierra Leone, for example, a team 20 of young volunteers built a secondary school for poor orphans.
For people interested in wildlife, conservation groups organise volunteer holidays throughout the world. You can help wildlife research in countries like Kenya and Botswana or protect 251 turtles in Mexico, Zanzibar, or elsewhere. On Redang Island in Malaysia volunteers come from all over the world to help conserve the endangered green turtle.
A volunteer holiday is for people who want to make a difference in the world and are prepared to give up their own time, money, and, effort to do it. Volunteers have to be realistic though and understand that they cannot change the world in 35 two or three weeks. To some volunteers it seems that they are not doing much by helping out for only a couple of weeks but, in fact, every bit of help counts. Thanks to young volunteers, the lives of millions of people around the world are improving and, in their eyes, the sun is probably shining brighter than it used to.
