Donating to projects

More and more volunteers, once here or already planned before departure, want to donate money to support the projects they’re working in. Or guests at AMAIDI Guesthouse decide to make an ‘on the spot’ donation.

If one makes a ‘one time donation’ (school-uniforms, books, cycle, a goat), that’s that and on returning home a photograph of the happy receiver sits quietly in ‘Thousand Splendid Suns’, awaiting praise and joy on arrival.

But what to do if a motivated and kind-hearted volunteer wants to contribute to the construction of a community kitchen? This calls for ‘process engagement’ with all the hurdles to success that come with it, especially in the area of communication and monitoring from afar.

I personally advise volunteers to either:

a) make a one-time donation and taste the pleasure of seeing the result of it while still here; and/or:
b) engage in contact with a reliable NGO that operates in the area where the receiver lives.

The problem with option b) is that reliable NGOs tend to be too busy with their ‘own’ projects, whereas NGOs that do have time, might not be reliable enough. A prisoner’s dilemma?

I do believe that donating money to support a project can do good, but one has to think carefully before giving and – once decided – one has to make sure that agreed arrangements are kept after one has gone home. AMAIDI, at present, has a rol as advisor and is in no way involved in the implementation process.

Filed under: charity, donating, finance, international volunteers, reliability

Managing Far Away Volunteers?

Its the sending agency’s nightmare: a volunteer writing home that things are nog going well at all, blaming the agency that has send him/her for the disaster. How to prevent such a thing from happening? Except the fact that – statistically spoken such an event HAS to happen once in a long while just to keep up the statistics – there ARE tips and tricks that can help preventing the nightmare from happening too often.

I came across an article where you can find just that:

Check out: http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org/resources/how-to-guides/manage-volunteers/doc/technology-and-long-distance.html

Happy reading you all!

Filed under: article, control, international volunteers, management, projects, reliability