Guest post by @BorderJumping

If you have a personal story, volunteer resources, tips and advice you’d like to share for Do Good Thursday, please email me at monica@apairofpantiesandboxers.com.

15 Ways To Volunteer In Africa

Our Journey began in October 2009 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — when we left to visit nearly every country in Africa. At every stop we are meeting with farmers, community organizers, labor activists/leaders, unions, non-governmental organization (NGOs), the funding and donor communities, and local press

All we hear about Africa in the United States are stories about conflict, famine, disease, HIV/AIDS, and hunger. The news tends to be so negative that it desensitizes people from the problems, makes people feel powerless, hardens us from doing something about it, and even scares them from visiting Africa (beyond a packaged tour safari).

Our goal is to highlight the stories of hope and success on the ground in Africa. We are visiting and profiling projects and innovations that are working (in sustainable ways) to alleviate hunger and poverty and spotlight things that are working on the ground that could be replicated or scaled up. We blog everyday on our personal site called BorderJumpers.

We want to highlight some ways for travelers to see Africa while helping cool initiatives on the ground by volunteering.

Here are 15 interesting options for you to consider (thousands more are out there….):

For Students….

1. If you are looking for something next summer and curious about Madagascar – we fell in love with the capital city Antanarivo – you might want to check out Reef Doctor. You can get free diving training and certification and conduct hands-on marine research, all while working with local fishing communities in the third largest coral reef system in the world.

2. If you are looking for a study abroad, WorldTeach runs a terrific semester program in Namibia. You can teach a number of different courses for elementary and high school children, including English, math, science and computer studies. At the end of the experience, make sure to hang out in Africa a bit longer by taking the Intercape bus company to Cape Town for winter break.

3. SIT Study Abroad offers a program called “Social Pluralism and Development” based in Cameroon’s political capital, Yaoundé.You will stay with a family for five weeks and spend a couple of weeks living in a northern village, with additional visits to western and coastal Cameroon. With more than 200 ethnic groups, local languages and dialects in the country, the program explores development theories, gender, art and cultural expression, and history.

4. Carpe Diem Education program integrates travel, volunteer work, and academic studies. In Uganda, you will live in the village of Junja working with an NGO that is building school houses in Uganda and then move to another village working with an interfaith coffee cooperative learning to grow and pick fair trade coffee. In Tanzania you will work with a health clinic as a volunteer with a medical NGO, while studying Swahili. Afterwards you head on a four day safari in through Tarangire National Park.

5. The Rhythm of West Africa Semester organized by Where There Be Dragons begins in Thies, Senegal, where you spend five weeks in a town about an hour from the capital city of Dakar. Students will meet with various NGO, taken intensive French lessons, attend guest lectures, and volunteer with local schools. The program continues as students hike overland into Guinea, visiting villages and integrating themselves in rural life and concludes with a three week home stay and volunteer project in rural areas of Senegal.

6. Doane College offers a really neat program for those looking to really jet-set across Africa — seeing, studying, and volunteering in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Swaziland, South Africa and Lesotho.

For a Volunteer Vacation…

7. Africa Impact offers a wide variety of ways to volunteer such as conservation work in Swaziland, chimpanzee and wildlife care in Zambia, pre-school orphan teaching in Mozambique, HIV/AIDS awareness in South Africa, and lion rehabilitation in Zimbabwe.

8. Volunteering in Africa has programs in Ghana that include volunteer work in the area of orphanage assistance, teaching, health care, journalism. You can participate for 1 to 26 weeks and volunteer ages run from 16 to 70.

9. Marine Conservation offers a program in Seychelles where spend your time scuba diving upon the amazing reef while providing much needed data to local organizations and government.

10. The Center for Cultural Interchange offers projects in Benin that enable you to work at a center for troubled youth, at a hospital, participate in a social action project, or to teach at a nursery school in a community village.

11. The Global Volunteer Network places people in Uganda working on an organic farming project. Volunteers work along side Ugandans digging and maintaining demonstration gardens. Activities include raised bed and double-dug farming to best utilize soil and make planting, harvesting, and fertilizing easier.

For Seniors…

12. GapYearForGrownUps offers some terrific short and long term volunteer projects in twelve African countries. Some of the types of volunteering include animal conservation, child development, mentoring youth, teaching reading and writing, and wildlife research. Programs last from a couple of days to several months.

13. Cross-Cultural Solutions provides a program in Tanzania for boomers who are 50-plus working side-by-side with local people on community-led initiatives. Programs last from 1-12 weeks.

14. At Global Volunteers volunteers teach conversational English and other basic subjects, caring for at risk youth, assisting with health care, building schools and community facilities and much more. About 50 percent of volunteers are older adults, drawn primarily from the U.S. and Canada.

15. Earthwatch Institute, is an international nonprofit organization with volunteer field researchers engaged in scientific and social science research around the world. With a strong emphasis on sustainability, it presently supports about 140 projects in 48 countries, including Africa. Forty percent of participants are older adults.

Border Jumpers

BorderJumpers began in October 2009 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — when Bernard Pollack and Danielle Nierenberg began a journey to visit nearly every country in Africa. At every stop they are meeting with farmers, community organizers, labor activists/leaders, unions, non-governmental organization (NGOs), the funding and donor communities, and local press. Follow them on @BoarderJumping, @WorldWatchag (Dani) or @BernardPollack (Bernie) for the latest update.

Flickr image by mogdig

I thought that being held at the La Guama police station the night before my flight would be the last hurdle I had to over come before landing on American soil. I was wrong. I woke up bright and early the following morning to catch the chicken bus into San Pedro Sula. It was cramped, crowded and fly infested. It was extremely hard to keep my mouth shut while the bus bounced and swerved on the highway. I’m pretty sure I had a few flies for breakfast.

When my friend and I arrived at the San Pedro Sula bus depot one and a half hour later, my behind was still vibrating. We took a cab to the airport and I was so glad that we arrived ahead of schedule. Wanting to get rid of some lempiras and to pass the time, I browsed through the only gift shop and magazine stand in the airport about eight times but came out empty handed.

It had been a long and eventful week in Honduras and I was exhausted. I was anxious to get back to NYC. But you know the more you eager you wait for something to come; the longer it takes to get there. As it turned out, our 2PM flight was delayed for two hours. During that time, the airport had about four blackouts, which left me a little uneasy. I wondered what would happen if the control tower blacked out during take off. I’d have a conniption.

When my plane arrived at 4PM, I was so relieved to be on board. By the time we landed in Miami, it was 8:30PM. Even after we left Honduras, there was another hurdle keeping us from home. Our connecting flight to JFK was at 9PM. My friend and I were contemplating the worse case scenario. If we missed our flight to NYC, we’d have to crash at the airport for the night. Thought it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, I longed for my own bed and a clean shower.

As soon as we stepped off the plane, we jetted through customs, which was conveniently located a mile away from our gate. I went from a full speed spring to jogging to speed walking to limping. I felt the same burning sensation I had when I was running down Taishan Mountain in China trying to catch the very last bus into town. After my Charlie horse subsided, I picked up speed and zoomed past eager family and friends who were waiting by the arrival gate to greet their loved ones. In the corner of my eyes, I saw the look of bewilderment on their faces. Can you image seeing two little Asian girls carry backpacks twice as big as they were running by like chickens with their heads cut off?

We managed to avoid the long line at customs as the people ahead of us saw that we were out of breath and in dire need of catching our connecting flight. They let us skip them and as we threw our backpacks through the screener we waved and said thank you. I wonder if they even heard us. By that time, we were half way down the hall. Luckily, our gate was the first one at the end of the hall and we boarded the plane with 5 minutes to spare. All eyes were on us as we arrived breathless, disheveled and grinning from ear to ear. Success!

Guest post by @SpencerSpellman

Photo by Smoovey via Flickr

I recently made my long-awaited return to the Big Apple. In many ways I feel like it’s become a second home as it’s the city I’ve visited more than anywhere else in the world. As soon as the wheels hit the ground, I announced my arrival to the world (via Twitter), expecting that  when I stepped off the plane, someone in a black suit and top hat would be holding a sign that said: “Spellman”. Much to my dismay, no limo driver was holding a sign with my name and what awaited me was a 45-minute delay at baggage claim. All that didn’t matter anymore, because I had finally arrived.

A few weeks ago, leading up to my trip to NYC, I wrote a post about the things from the Carolinas that I wasn’t likely to find in New York City. This included Cheerwine, mullets and
jorts (the term that affectionately known as a hybrid between jeans and shorts) and gem mines. As many southern things I can think of that I wouldn’t typically find in New York City, I came to realize that there are also many things about NYC that can’t be found in the Carolinas.

Although you’ll find street food in a rare number of metros in the south, it’s got nothing on New York City. I actually planned my first day around being able to have street food for lunch (well that, and watching the World Cup). People complain about the high prices in New York, but where else can you have a hot, fresh lunch for a couple of bucks?! Not only that, but if you find that the kebob just didn’t quite fill you, then you’re likely to walk past any number of various street carts that will do the trick.

Of course surprisingly, New York City and the south share many things in common. I fit right in at the Mason Dixon, a southern style bar that is known for its mechanical bull, which you’ll find in some southern metros. Other notable commonalities include BBQ (though not North Carolina BBQ), no shortage of Starbucks, fanny pack wearers (probably who are from the south) and thick accents.

It should be noted that although there are many things that I experienced in New York City that I don’t typically experience in the south, the street food took the cake. Honorable mentions that I experienced first-hand include: men walking down the middle of the street in nothing but their whitey tighties, reggae bands playing on public transportation, taxi cab races and people passing out tracts to the “boom boom room”.

Just a few short days after arriving, I boarded my plane back to the south, fully satisfied at another trip to NYC that was far from uneventful. As I got on the plane, I again announced my departure to the world (via Twitter of course), though something tells me that life will continue on as it has in the Big Apple until my return.

Spencer Spellman

Spencer Spellman is a Freelance Travel Writer, who since flying by  himself for the first time at age 8, just hasn’t been able to kick his travel addiction. His globetrots around the world has included vienna sausage eating contests in South Africa, eating alligator tail in Florida and cannonballing into the Irish Sea in the middle of the winter. Growing up in the deep south, Spencer’s southern drawl is his most distinguishing characteristic, no matter how hard he tries to mask it on Twitter. You can find him on Twitter at @SpencerSpellman.

Military conflict in Northern Uganda has displaced 80% of the population into Internal Displaced Person (IDP) Camps. Lacking food and other basic necessities, these camps are plagued with high levels of poverty, rape and HIV/AIDS infections, making it one of the poorest regions in the country.

• Over one million children are not attending school
• 25% of children have lost one or both their parents
• 12% of women 30-40 are widows
• 80% of adult women have no complete primary school
• Only 9% of men have completed secondary school

Northern Uganda has a 12% HIV/ADIS prevalence rate, twice the national rate

The data is daunting but this isn’t something we’ve never heard before. Statistics are important but so are solutions.

Dreams For Kids’ (DFK) mission is to “end the suffering and dying in Uganda by providing access to education and sustainable income sources for women who will rebuild their country and create a future of hope for their children.”

DFK is currently building a primary school in the village of Gulu. Join them in their One Brick at a Time Campaign. For as little as $10, every brick you purchase will help build their school. Cornerstone bricks are also available for $100.

Ensure the future of the children of Gulu. Buy a brick.

Remember when you were five and you chose your best friend based on whether or not they’d share their box of Crayola Crayons with you? Losing my “best friend” of the day and getting rejected wasn’t fun but my crayons meant more to me than PlayDough and Pringles. Every child should have the opportunity go through these growing pains and make the decision for themselves. It could even guide them to their future as an artist or an architecture.

Unfortunately, children in a small village in Maharastra, India called Pusla won’t have the chance to develop their creativity with our help.  Are you an artist who can offer your talents while traveling the world? Dreams For Kids and Ayuda Shilip, an Indian Non-Profit, have teamed up together with a mission to provide the environment, training and resources necessary to help Indian children develop their creativity and artistic talents.

Their focus is on encouraging and enhacing art and creativity. Some immediate goals include:

• Building wells for clean drinking water
• Developing plans to build schools where none exist
• Creating art workshops in the schools
• Developing an art exchange program with the US Dream Leaders program
• Supplying adaptive equipment for children with disabilities.

If you have plans of inundating yourself with the beauty and wonders that India has to offer, give a little back by volunteering with Dreams For Kids in India.

I was reminiscing about my time in Beijing the other day. Here are some of my most memorable moments there:

• Beijing, I Am Here
• A Snow Day On The Great Wall of China
• The Temple of Heaven
• Summer Palace In Beijing
• The Forbidden City & The Hidden Hostel
• Cultural Norms

A single act of kindness turned into a global youth organization. It all started on Christmas eve in 1989, Chicago, IL . Dreams for Kids founder, Tom Tuohy, and a dozen volunteers including Santa, delivered gifts and food to a children’s shelter, Clara’s House. This annual gathering, called Holiday for Hope, is now held in over 30 countries – the largest event of its kind in the world.

After that Tom began Extreme Recess when he met JJ in 1996, a young man paralyzed during a hockey incident. The program is dedicated to helping children realize and achieve their dreams.

In 2007, Dreams for Kids began its global expansion. Since its founding, Dreams for Kids have impacted the lives of over 28,000 children. Here are some of the lives they’ve changed:

“I can speak in front of a group of people! I can look at people with disability and see they are just like me! I accept people for who they are!   Keep this program, and never let it die out! It’s strong like the people in it. I LOVED it!! When new [Dream Leaders] programs are starting up I would want to be there and tell kids my story and how it changed me! I just want to be a part of it!!”
–Diamond Watkins, Age 16

“This summer Dreams for Kids came to San Diego. I had a great time playing wheelchair basketball. I would like to tell you how much you touched me. I will remember forever that you came to NSA. Now when somebody makes fun of disabled, I tell them, they are not disabled, they are able– able to do everything. Thank you for changing me.” -Heather, Age 10, Wisconsin

“For my birthday this year, I asked for donations instead of presents. So here are the donations ($250) for Dreams for Kids.” -Brendan, Age 10

Dreams For Kids currently has international volunteer abroad programs located in India, Uganda, Ghana and Haiti. I will be highlighting their projects from each of these countries around the world. Stay tuned if you are interested in volunteering and/or donating to projects in these countries.

Guest blog post by @VagaBen

There are many interesting theories on how La Boca, a neighborhood in Buenos Aires, got its unusual name. The most common theory is that the neighborhood got the name La Boca, “The Mouth”, after the close by harbor which is shaped as a mouth. A more interesting theory is that when the conquistadors arrived to the area they were met by a native tribe who supposedly practiced cannibalism. While these theories can be discussed for ages, there is no need to discuss that La Boca is one of the most interesting neighborhoods in South America.

Today, La Boca is one of the poorest neighborhoods, or barrios as they are called on native tongue, in Buenos Aires. But what they lack in money and wealth, they compensate with culture, passion and history. The Barrios is most famous for its football team La Boca Juniors, and Caminito, the street of colored houses. While the area is often stamped as a tourist trap, the place is still a must go for anyone visiting Buenos Aires. The touristic facade might feel fake, but the history is not.

“Boca Beach”: The industrial pollution around the old port has become a huge danger for the inhabitants of La Boca

From 1895 to 1914 almost 4 million people immigrated to Argentina, which was a doubling of the population in just 20 years! Most of the immigrants were poor people from Spain and Italy searching for a new beginning in a new country. One of the groups that stood out was the immigrants from Genoa, Italy. They were used to work at the docks, and when they arrived at the docks off Buenos Aires with nothing to go to they just as well settled where there was work they knew, forming the harbor barrio La Boca. The neighborhood still preserves their cultural heritage to Genova. Many still claim the Genovian white and red crossed flag to be the flag of La Boca, and the football team shirt carry an inscription saying “Los Xeneizes” which is a Genoese word for The Genoans.

Caminito – The Street of Colored houses in La Boca

For visitors to La Boca, the colored house area is usually on the top “to-see”. Sadly enough, the place has been destroyed by tourism, and the houses that stand their today are new built to satisfy the visiting tourists and empty their money for souvenirs. But the houses still helps to tell the story of the immigrants that lived there, and still live in the areas around. As previously mentioned, when the Genovans and other immigrants arrived, they were more or less broke. So in order to build houses, they had to scrape together what they found lying on the docks and on the garbage fields of the nearby factories. Since there weren’t enough tin or plank to build a house singularly of one material, they simply had to mix the materials together. That’s why you can see houses built with small parts of tin and small parts of plank.

The already shabby looking houses were made even more depressing with the brown/gray color used for painting. Since they couldn’t afford paint, they had to do the same as they did for material, mix everything they had together. A local artist was frustrated by the dark and dirty look of the neighborhood and came up with a brilliant suggestion. Instead of mixing the colors, why didn’t they just paint the house with the colors they had? The word spread, and soon you could see hundreds of houses that all were painted with green, blue, red, yellow and black areas.  That’s how the buildings of La Boca got their Colorful look.

One of the few football grounds in the barrio.

Football in Argentina is bigger than anything else. The national team is almost treated like religion, and the club teams are only a small stretch behind. La Boca Juniors is the pride and glory of the barrio. The team has also become a symbol of the poor people in Buenos Aires and Argentina in general. This is best shown in the local derby match against the northern team River, also called “Los millionaros”. The story behind La Boca’s Blue and yellow color is also a fascinating story. In order to depress the growing rebel of the Genovans in La Boca, their flag in red and white were forbidden area. In order to pick a new color for their team, they agreed upon taking the color of the first ship that arrived on the port. The ship happened to be Swedish, and the team still carries the blue and yellow colors of the Swedish flag! Ironically enough, Red and White is now the color of their most fierce opponent River.

If you ever happen to find yourself In Buenos Aires, do not hesitate on visiting La Boca. Some claim it’s too much of a tourist hotspot, others claim it’s too dangerous.  Like most things in life; it is what you make it. If you only take a stroll down the tourist lane with no interest to the history or the culture behind it; it will be boring. If you run around with your brand new PLR camera and push it into strangers faces; it will be dangerous. However, if you act like a backpacker with interest for local culture and respect for local habitants I can assure you that you will have a great time! To watch La Boca Juniors play at the Bombanera or watch a local tango show at a worn out bar can make for lifelong memories that you’ll never forget. I know I haven’t.

Ben Kvamstad

This article was written by Ben Kvamstad who daily works as an editor for Backpack South America. Ben travelled around South America for 3 months earlier this year while working on his articles, Guides and travel stories. You can find more of Ben’s work over at his Travel Blog – VagaBen.

Ok, so I wasn’t technically held at the police station in La Guama. I went there voluntarily. See I’m honest. Right off the bat. My friend and I were a tad late catching a bus back from Comayagua and by the time we reached La Guama, we discovered that buses stop running at 6PM. This was just perfect. It was our last night in Honduras and we had no clue as to how we were going to find transportation back to our hotel by Lago de Yajoa.

My chicken bus buddy, who appeared to be an architecture, kindly offered to take us to the police station to ask for help. He slipped the guy at the front of the bus a few lempiras and asked them to drop us off at the station. He walked us over to the policeman and explained to him that we were trying to get back to our hotel. Then he left and disappeared into the darkness and my friend and I were left sitting unknowingly underneath a swarm of mosquitoes hoovering near the light bulb above us.

As my friend did most of the communicating with the police officers I was trying to prepare myself for the worst case scenario: crash at the police station till the morning and catch the first bus back to the lake. As we stood by the side of the road, the two police officers tried to flag down a car or a van for us. No luck.

None of the cars seem to be going towards the direction of our hotel. Suddenly, my chicken bus buddy appeared again. I think he came back to make sure we were okay. We were finally able to flag down an awfully nice car – leather seats, air conditioning, surround sound stereo. It was way above the average standard of living standard in Honduras. He officer asked the driver to drop us off at our hotel. Luckily for us, the driver spoke pretty decent English. My friend and I hopped into the back seat of the car and my chicken bus buddy rode in the back.

It was a really quick ride as we almost missed the sign to our hotel if it wasn’t my chicken bus buddy who pounded the back of the truck to let the driver know that we’ve arrived. I’ve never been so excited to be back at a place swarming with mud, mildew and mosquitoes. We were extremely grateful for their help and I will always remember their faces for their sincerest generosity. We waved good-bye and I, literally, skipped to the front of the gate only to discovered that it was locked.

That was just great. Just when I thought I had survived my last and final adventure in Honduras, we had another challenge to face. Determine to get back into our hotel room, I suggested that we squeeze ourselves through the gate. As my friend carefully stuck her left leg in, the gate shifted a little. I pushed and to my surprise, it swung open. We laughed at our idiocy and cheered that we didn’t have another challenge to overcome.

Until we realized that the trail to the hotel was pitch dark and I left my flashlight in the hotel room not expecting to come back this late. One thing I learned racing down Taishan in China the dark is that at night your cellphone is your best friend. My friend whipped out her cell phone and we used it as a flash light to make our way back to the hotel. Adventure complete. Wee!

The tower at Comayagua’s Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepcion overlooks the entire town. This view, by far, is my favorite mainly because of the colors and texture of the highest dome. It adds a little Arabic feel to this old Spanish colonial capital.