The best volunteer abroad organization/program?

What are the best volunteer abroad programs?

• I'm searching for good volunteer abroad programs, please help if you can!

• Answer:

  There is a listing of the more-than-30 member organizations of the International Volunteers Program Association (IVPA) that is a good place to find reputable volunteer-for-a-fee programs. http://www.volunteerinternational.org/ How these programs rate against one another, I cannot say. When you say which are the "best", I don't know your criteria. The one where the volunteers have fun and feel like they've made a difference? OR, the one where local people feel like the volunteers were focused on the local community and their needs, rather than the wants of the volunteers themselves? Or would you have even different criteria? Here's how I would judge a quality fee-based volunteering program: -- it has testimonials from previous participants available for review -- it has all of its financial information online (how much their yearly budget is, how much money they raised in the latest fiscal year and how much they spent -- and what they spent that money on) -- it provides volunteers with safe, meaningful assignments that allow for a lot of interaction with local people -- it provides apprpriate help and support if the volunteer is detained by police, accused of misconduct by community members, or is in need of medical attention -- it provides appropriate training -- it gives volunteers a menu of options for tasks to undertake -- it has a screening process, and doesn't take "just anyone" as a volunteer because they can pay the fee