Learning Service

Claire first volunteered overseas as a teenager in Nepal, where she now lives. Driven by an insatiable desire to change the world, she helped to found a rural development organization, PHASE. Confronted with the complexities of the aid world but determined not to become jaded, she shifted her focus towards what she believes to be the root causes of global injustice: the lack of awareness about development issues in the world. She was the UK coordinator of youth organization Development in Action, supported young people to take action on global issues with Global Youth Action, and coordinated a DFID strategy to embed a global dimension in classroom education. After volunteering with VSO in Cambodia, where she met Daniela, Claire now owns a training company in Nepal, works for US-based global citizenship education company Where There Be Dragons and freelances as a development education consultant. Joe's teenage experiences volunteering in Latin America and the Philippines led to a lifetime of learning, writing, and lecturing about the impact of US policies on the lives of the world's impoverished majority. He is co-founder of the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First); a Guggenheim Fellow recognized for his work on issues of inequitable development; and a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at the University of California Santa Cruz. His books include Food First, World Hunger: 10 Myths, Chile's Free-Market Miracle: A Second Look, No Free Lunch, Philippines: Fire on the Rim, and Aid As Obstacle. Collins has been a consultant in Africa, Asia and Latin America to UN and international non-governmental organizations. He lives and surfs in Santa Cruz, California. Zahara lived a life dedicated to social justice, tirelessly campaigning on a wide range of social issues from ending apartheid in South Africa to ensuring cancer patients in the US have access to life-saving medicines. Her career as a writer and social justice organizer was grounded in her work overseas: volunteering to plant fruit trees in rural Zambia and helping to build a medical clinic in Nicaragua. With Joe, she was a co-author of How to Live Your Dream of Volunteering Overseas and she was a contributing editor and regular columnist at Transitions Abroad. Her articles have been published in Community Jobs magazine and in the book Global Backlash: Citizen Initiatives for a Just World Economy. She had an M.A. in International Development from American University. After nearly a decade of battling with cancer, Zahara died just as this book was being readied for publication. She has left many legacies to this world that will continue to have an impact for generations; we hope this book will be one of them. Daniela's interest in volunteer travel began with her work in Cambodia as the founder of PEPY Tours, an education travel company and PEPY, a youth leadership organization. During her six years in Cambodia, Daniela shifted PEPY's work away from a focus on service to a focus on development education. She became an international advocate for a learning-first approach to service, as the anti-orphanage tourism movement. She went on to do her MBA at Oxford's Said Business School through the Skoll Scholarship and subsequently began working for the Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship. As the Deputy Director of the Center, Daniela designed new leadership programming for students interested in social impact careers and created educational curricula on systems-led approaches to social change. Her report and accompanying SSIR article on Tackling Heropreneurshp have been widely read, and the Impact Gaps Canvas, a tool she designed to help people consider the systems in which they work, is used in many universities around the world. Daniela now lives in sunny Boulder, Colorado with her husband and young son.

Getting started

On learning

Part 1: LEARNING ABOUT YOURSELF

Chapter 1 – Embracing a Learning Mindset
Chapter 2 – Exploring Your Motivations and Goals

Part 2: LEARNING ABOUT VOLUNTEERING

Chapter 3– Putting it in Context: You Are Not the First to Say “I Am Here to Help”
Chapter 4 - The Potential Pitfalls of Volunteer Travel
Chapter 5 – The Positive Potential of Learning Service

Part 3: LEARNING ABOUT YOUR OPTIONS

Chapter 6 – Volunteering and Alternatives: Deciding on the Right Path for You
Chapter 7–Volunteer Roles and Projects
Chapter 8– Choices and Considerations in Exploring Volunteer Travel
Chapter 9 – Evaluating and Selecting an Option

On action

Part 4: ACTION – BEFORE YOU LEAVE
Chapter 10– Practicing Soft and Hard Skills
Chapter 11– Everyone Can Get There - Funding Your Time Abroad
Chapter 12– Final Logistics: Mentally and Physically `Packing Your Bags’

Part 5: Action - While Abroad
Chapter 13– Humble and Effective Action
Chapter 14 – Getting the Most Out of Your Time Overseas: Learning Service Applied to Life Abroad
Chapter 15 – Using Your Skills Appropriately and Sustainably

Part 6: ACTION – RETURNING HOME AND FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
Chapter 16– Transitioning Home
Chapter 17 – Using Learning Service to Make a Lasting Change

Parting Words
Further Reading – Development Book Reviews
Endnotes