The price of volunteering
Posted By Alec on March 13, 2010
The are many who come to Thailand and Nong Khai for more than just a holiday, wanting the satisfaction of spending their time helping others in some way. Invariably, people turn to one of the many well known organisations that offer volunteering opportunities around the world. Usually, they will pay what seems like a reasonable amount of money for their ‘working vacation’ and return home content that they have ‘made a difference’. But what of the money that they have spent on their volunteering? Where does that money go? Many would assume that this would all go back into helping people and supporting other volunteer programs. Unfortunately though, all too often this is not the case. Many do not realise that these organisations, rather than being run for charitable reasons are run as businesses, with profit as their main concern. Now, if this is all clear from the start, I do not think that there is a problem with it. Then, when people are deciding where there money is going, they can make an informed judgement taking everything into account. It is when the line between charity and business is not made clear that I think it is unethical.
There are volunteer “businesses” operating programs in Nong Khai, but I am not going to name them. I would, however, like to highlight one organisation that does NOT run as a business, but as an entirely NOT FOR PROFIT, REGISTERED CHARITY and that is ISARA FOUNDATION.
Isara Foundation is a registered charity based in Nong Khai, determined to make it easy AND FREE for everyone to help others. Simply use their website (www.isara.org) as your browser homepage or for your Google searches and you will help to fund Isara charity projects… FOR FREE!
Isara started in 2005 with a campaign to provide free motorcycle helmets to school children, but since then they have expanded by opening a FREE LEARNING CENTRE, providing scholarships and educating students about environmental concerns. Isara creates its own projects together with volunteers, sponsors and clicks to its website (www.isara.org). 100% OF ISARA’S REVENUE GOES DIRECTLY TO CREATING AND MAINTAINING ISARA PROJECTS.
Isara Foundation believes that volunteering should be free and that nobody should profit from charity. That is why they created one of the only FREE VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS in the world. If you are interested in volunteering in Thailand, India or Nepal, I would personally urge you to take a look at Isara first. You can apply online and before you know it you could be making a difference as an Isara volunteer.
Isara also has an active online forum where visitors, supporters and volunteers post about everything from Isara’s charity projects to the latest movies, books and music. So don’t just take my word for it, go in to the forum and see what past and present volunteers at Isara have to say.
Do you currently have Nong Khai Information as your homepage? Why not just bookmark it and make www.isara.org your home page instead, as I have done. Just by this one simple action, you will be helping them to fund their charitable projects.
It is a pity that there are not more organisations like Isara, but hopefully, in time this will change. This whole topic is something that I have been aware of for some time, but it took the following post in Isara’s forum to prompt me to finally blog about it. I think that it is certainly worth while to read the following discussion thread, and follow the links contained within it:
http://www.isara.org/forum/the-good-news-is/investigating-high-paid-charity-ceos/msg41992/?topicseen#new
