30 June 2008

Is Working in the Hot Sun Your Idea of a Vacation? It Is for Many

More Americans are taking vacations that combine service with sightseeing

Global Volunteer Margy Ross works in Cebadilla, a small farming community in the Monteverde region of Costa Rica, each year.

By Howard Cincotta
Special Correspondent

Washington -- For an increasing number of Americans and other international travelers, vacations are being redefined to include a new range of activities not usually associated with leisure time -- building improved adobe stoves in Peru, repairing elementary schools in Cambodia, cataloguing Mayan iconography in Guatemala or caring for poor children in Brazil.

Volunteer vacations, as they often are termed, may involve only a small proportion of American vacationers, but their numbers are growing.  Fourteen percent of American travelers have taken at least one volunteer vacation, according to a survey by Condé Nast Traveler magazine and the cable television network MSNBC, but 55 percent said they would like to take such a vacation in the future.

Minnesota-based Global Volunteers, a pioneer in the field of combining travel with community service, estimates annual growth of 15 percent to 20 percent, according to co-founder and president Bud Philbrook.  Global Volunteers will sponsor more than 2,300 participants in 2008 to serve in communities from Tanzania to Ecuador, typically for one, two or three weeks.

Another large nonprofit, GlobeAware, founded by Texas-based entrepreneur Kimberly Haley-Coleman, says its numbers have increased by 100 percent during the past two years for trips to places ranging from Peru and Costa Rica to Laos, China and Romania.

Travel experts cite two natural disasters -- the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and 2005 flooding of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina -- as galvanizing many Americans to contribute more time and money.  But much of the growth in service-oriented travel has arisen out of the long American tradition of giving.  (See "Private Sector Drives Growth in U.S. Assistance to Poor Nations.")

"People have an emotional experience when they do volunteer vacations," says reporter Stacy Teicher of the Christian Science Monitor in a Web commentary.  "They want to be able to connect with people in the local culture and they really want to make a difference.  They are deeply moved by their experience and they tell all their friends about it and they want to do it again."

SCHOOLS AND SERVICE

If your ideal vacation involves cataloging plants or digging for ancient artifacts, an organization like Earthwatch can offer choices ranging from monitoring changes in the Arctic tundra to restoring a medieval castle in the Tuscany region of Italy, or excavating megafauna -- extinct large species like giant armadillos -- in northern Mexico.

More schools are requiring students to perform community service before they graduate from secondary school.  As a result, about 28 percent of teens age 16 to 19 work as volunteers, the highest percentage in 20 years, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service.

The organization Break Away works with universities to recruit students to forego sun-and-fun spring-break vacations for community-service projects.  Break Away estimates that 36,000 U.S. college students took part in "alternative break" activities in 2006.  (See “U.S. Students Use Vacations To Volunteer in Community Service.”)

Many other nonprofits provide opportunities for community-service vacations.  One of the best known is Habitat for Humanity, which has built more than 250,000 houses around the world for low-income people.  Although the organization is headquartered in the United States, two-thirds of Habitat construction takes place in other countries.

U.S. Air Force Academy cadet Jessica Guy works with Habitat for Humanity on a house in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, during spring break.

FAMILY VACATIONS

Global Volunteers’ Philbrook said in a recent interview that volunteer family vacations are the single fastest-growing component, typically with children ages 8 to 16, sometimes including grandparents.  He recalls a woman who said her graduation present of a volunteer vacation to her granddaughter "was a gift of values."

Global Volunteer Margy Ross first took her 12-year-old daughter on a working vacation to the Monteverde region of Costa Rica in 2002.  When the opportunity came up for a Christmas trip to the Hawaiian island of Maui, her daughter said she would rather go back to Costa Rica -- which they did, joined by Ross' husband.

The family has gone back every summer since, spending two weeks working in a small farming community near the city of Santa Elena, where they dig irrigation ditches, mix cement or repair buildings.

"Even with just two weeks a year, we feel very connected to the community, watching the kids grow and sharing the experience as a family," Ross told America.gov.

Volunteer vacations are not necessarily cheap.  Participants pay for travel and lodging, but such costs are generally tax-deductible as long as volunteer work is the primary purpose of the trip.

SHORT TRIPS, LONG-TERM BENEFITS

No matter how well intentioned, can anyone really make a difference in a community in such a short time?

Yes, according to GlobeAware’s Haley-Coleman, who stresses the value of partnership with local communities.  "Our objectives are to promote both sustainability and cultural awareness," she said.  "We want to understand both the real beauty and the real challenges of a culture."

GlobeAware is tackling new challenges in China, for example, where volunteers are assisting the Dandelion School in Beijing, which serves children of migrant workers who have no access to education or medical care.

Philbrook said the answer to making a difference is continuity and focus: "We work in local communities with a focus on education as the foundation for any kind of development."

Volunteers may stay for only a brief time, Philbrook said, but their programs are ongoing.  "You are a vital link in a long chain of volunteers," he tells them.

See American Giving.