Why choose World Endeavors for your volunteer project?

World Endeavors’ international volunteer programs match participants with certain interests or skills to specific service projects in need of hands-on help. Our volunteer programs are immersive – volunteers live in the communities they serve, meet local people, learn the language, and experience local customs and traditions.

Embarking on an international volunteer program is a life-changing experience that emboldens participants and inspires them to notice, care, and engage more fully in their world.

How to choose the best volunteer program

Choosing your volunteer program is easy when you evaluate your priorities. Follow these steps to guide you toward your ideal program.

Explore a New Career

Interning abroad offers a great opportunity to explore your professional and personal interests, and help define your career path. Peruse our internship fields and past examples to find the best fit.

Choose Your Dream Destination

Finding a meaningful way to combine interning and travel to your dream location is a big incentive. Carefully consider which destinations suit your interests and international internship goals.

Improve Language Skills

Immersing yourself in a language-rich environment is the ultimate method for developing fluency. If language-learning is your goal, favor destinations that use your language of choice.

Fit your budget

Explore scholarships and financial aid to determine if these may impact your destination options. Consider the overall cost of the program and cost of living in-country to identify the optimal match.

Try our program finder to filter based on your choices.

SEARCH

Our Top Volunteer Abroad Destinations

World Endeavors volunteers support communities in several destinations in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania. Our programs are located in a variety of sites, including urban and rural, economically developed and developing, and English-speaking and non-English speaking.

Eligibility

Applicants to most of our programs must be 18 years of age or older, though exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis. There is no age limit for participating in a World Endeavors program. World Endeavors volunteers are students, graduates, professionals, families, couples, and retirees. We welcome volunteers of all ages and backgrounds who are hardworking and dedicated to contributing to a community abroad.

A successful international volunteer doesn’t impose personal perceptions and beliefs, but instead stays open to the needs of the community and responds in an appropriate and respectful way. World Endeavors volunteers should be willing to experience a certain amount of culture shock as a part of the process of widening their comfort zone, recognizing and letting go of cultural stereotypes and expectations. In this sense, volunteers should expect to be challenged as well as transformed. Our volunteer programs are meant to be powerful, formative experiences that appeal to someone looking to contribute time, effort, skills, and compassion to serving a local community on their terms.

Health & Safety

When you feel safe and respected abroad, you will flourish. World Endeavors participants are transformed through enriching, rewarding and safe experiences around the world. We meticulously monitor travel recommendations and will only facilitate programs where we can ensure our participants’ safety.

We take key steps to ensure our participants’ well-being, including providing a pre-trip success guide, 24/7 local support, in-country trained staff, pre and post-arrival orientation, comprehensive travel medical insurance, and Mental Health First Aid-certified staff. Please contact us if you have any specific questions or concerns.

Every World Endeavors Volunteer Project Includes

Our carefully designed international volunteer programs encompass everything necessary for your success and well-being while abroad.

YOUR VOLUNTEER PROGRAM

  • Volunteer project customized to match your interests and goals and meet community needs
  • Year-round program availability
  • Flexible durations from 2 to 12 weeks

PEACE OF MIND

  • Comprehensive travel medical insurance
  • Mental Health First Aid-certified staff
  • 24/7 emergency travel assistance

ACCOMMODATION

  • Host family or shared volunteer house, depending on destination
  • Vetted and hand-selected with quality and safety in mind
  • 2 to 3 meals per day included

PREPARATION AND SUPPORT

  • Airport pickup
  • Pre-arrival and on-site orientation
  • 24/7 local support

TEAM OF EXPERTS

  • Dedicated one-on-one advisor
  • Local on-site coordinator
  • Volunteer project supervisor

RE-ENTRY AND CAREER INTEGRATION

  • Re-entry handbook and support
  • Assistance with resume updates
  • World Endeavors Alumni Network

Our Volunteer Projects

Browse our full range of volunteer projects. If you don’t find your preferred program here then please use our program finder.

Volunteer Abroad
Tanzania

Tanzania Environmental Conservation Monduli

Experience Tanzania by taking part in its local conservation efforts around the rural outback of Monduli.

Tanzania Environmental Conservation Monduli

Get involved in forestry efforts, teaching classes on environmental conservation, tree planting and more! This program is part of an effort to preserve the local environment and offer important environmental awareness to the local community in Monduli.

This program works with an environmental club through a local school to increase student awareness of environmental issues, and encourage them to join the cause. You’ll be contributing your time on this campaign and planting seeds to nurture responsible future citizens of the world.

Another component of this project is caring for Monduli’s rainforests through reforestry, in order to help preserve the health of the atmosphere. These rainforests

Volunteer Abroad
Tanzania

Tanzania English Teaching Monduli

Meet a new generation of eager students and help improve their English as a community teacher in Tanzania!

Tanzania English Teaching Monduli

Teach in local schools in the district of Monduli and help the students broaden their minds. It will also be a fulfilling experience for you! Friendly school teachers will provide guidance and lesson plans for you based on their curriculum. Take part in informal group activities involving games, coloring, books and toys, all with the goal of improving the local children’s English.

We have strong relationships with various primary, secondary, and high schools around the Monduli district in need of teaching support and community leaders, who would like us to organize English learning programs in the local village hall. You will have the chance to teach mathematics and science for higher level

Volunteer Abroad
Ecuador

Ecuador Environmental Conservation – Cloud Forest Nature Reserve

Join the team at a nature reserve in the cloud forest working to combat deforestation, restore degraded areas and carry out sustainable activities to enable a better way of life for the inhabitants of the cloud forest.

Ecuador Environmental Conservation – Cloud Forest Nature Reserve

Living on the reserve are 287 species of birds, 40 species of mammals, and 63 genera of butterflies. The work that we do at the reserve is extremely important in terms of preserving the biodiversity of the cloud forest and protecting local watersheds. Our work focuses on protecting existing forests through reforestation, monitoring human activity and its impact, and conducting environmental education. The reserve strives to become a model of integrated farming where agricultural practices complement our primary objective of preserving the natural forest. Combining conservation and agriculture enables us to sustain the reserve and promote economic activities that are environmentally friendly

Volunteer Abroad
Ghana

Ghana Teaching Art and Design

If your passion for Art and Design is through the roof and you desire to share your unique gifts with the world, then this program is tailor-made for you.

Ghana Teaching Art and Design

During your program you will get to help run Art Clubs in local schools, using any number of different mediums. Your efforts will be helping local children use their own creative abilities to express themselves and produce their own works of art that they can be proud of.

The aims and objectives of this project are:

  • Deepen the artistic and creative expression of local children and yourself
  • Broaden cultural interactions through learning and idea exchange
  • Gain invaluable and practical experience in teaching
  • Expand your knowledge of Ghanaian customs, history, art and culture

Typically you can choose the age group you’d prefer to work with, and then develop a syllabus for your class and dete

Volunteer Abroad
Tanzania

Tanzania Medical Placement Monduli

Be part of a medical program at a local hospital in Arusha, Tanzania and gain valuable knowledge and skills alongside local professionals.

Tanzania Medical Placement Monduli

This is a great opportunity for prospective medical students to not only hone their medical skills through international work experience, but also provide medical assistance to people and places with less resources available to them.

The hospital is an institution established in 1975 which is operated by a religious order in the community, and initially focused on providing medical care to expectant mothers and children. As the population grew in Arusha, the need for varied care grew as well. Over time this medical facility has grown to become the second largest hospital in Arusha with an in-patient capacity of 100 and well over 100 staff members. It now handles patients in Obstetrics/Gyneco

Volunteer Abroad Smiling young woman in a classroom with students in the background
Ghana

Ghana Childcare Accra

Help improve the standard of living and education for children, through your involvement with a variety of tasks at a local school.

Ghana Childcare Accra

In many parts of the country, there are increasing numbers of children and minors who have been left to fend for themselves, due to unfortunate circumstances. You can join a dedicated team of local staff in their efforts to help Ghanaians in need, by teaching, renovating, and completing various other tasks.

The teaching staff are often overworked and therefore welcome any help that can be given. Working as a teacher’s assistant in the school or taking on other projects provides the staff with invaluable support and often frees-up their time to give the children the one-to-one attention they need.

Your ability to speak English will mean that you can help with English lessons which can provide

Career Break
Tanzania

Tanzania Culture Week

Learn more about Tanzania, create new bonds, and immerse yourself in the local culture. This week will take you to important locations related to Tanzania's culture and history.

Tanzania Culture Week

The week will feature orientation classes and visits to a Maasai Village and other places of interest, all of which will help you integrate into the local culture and prepare you for your volunteer experience in this incredible part of the world!

Culture Week is packed with an introduction to local customs and traditions, do’s and dont’s and language classes, as well as a walking safari to observe animals in their natural habitat. You will visit highlights of the amazing town of Monduli, which is a bustling and developing township with rich history and many places of interest such as museums, art galleries and monuments, where you’ll be sure to learn more about this country’s struggle for in

Volunteer Abroad
Thailand

Thailand Kindergarten Hua Hin

Want to know what it's like to engage in creative learning activities with children? This program located in Hua Hin has it all!

Thailand Kindergarten Hua Hin

In this program, you will prepare teaching lessons for children, help them with their daily activities and chores and put them down for a nap. You will have plenty of time to relax from lunchtime onwards and enjoy swimming at a local beach. Alternatively, continue interacting with the children in the afternoon alongside the local teachers and staff.

During your time at this childcare program, you will be working with children from age 2.5 to 6 years old at a local children’s development centre/kindergarten located in Hua Hin. Many children’s care development centres and kindergartens in Hua Hin are facing a teacher shortage problem. In some placements, there are up to 30 children in a classr

Not sounding like the right program for you? Try our program finder to filter based on your choices.

Find Your Program

Recent Volunteer Abroad Testimonials

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Nadia SVolunteer in Argentina

“I did a volunteer program in Argentina and I had a wonderful time! I loved the organization that I was placed with and I received great support from start to finish by the World Endeavors team. The program has such great flexibility when it comes to start/finish dates, location options and volunteer opportunities; it's gave me the ability to truly make the experience my own. I'd highly recommend it and will definitly be doing it again.”

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Autumn RVolunteer in Costa Rica

“Amazing experience from start to finish! Everyone involved in the process both here in the states and while abroad was fantastic and readily available when I had any questions!
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Arielle TVolunteer in Fiji

“I loved every bit of it. I thought it was perfectly balanced between work and having time to go off and explore and hang out with friends I made. I loved the program coordinator, who was one of the ones staying at the house and went off to school with us. I didn’t really have any expectations going in but was completely blown away.”

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Shannon MVolunteer in Ghana

“The World Endeavors program allowed me to venture into a culture and community other than my own and gain the world of experience by doing so. Never in a million years would I have imagined traveling and meeting such amazing souls, and seeing the world through different eyes. I am grateful for the opportunity, and encourage any and all persons to take a trip no matter how long with the program. The advisors are with you every step of the way and will be sure to have u prepared before departure and while you are in your country of choice.
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Sara PVolunteer in India

“This summer I went to Jaipur, India, to work in a lower income neighborhood with women and children to better their conditions. The experience has been incredible both on the professional side and on the emotional one. The whole experience has fullfilled my soul with many memories and much more knowledge! Thanks to World Endeavors which has helped me with every single detail before, during and after my trip!”

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Jay CVolunteer in Nepal

“After Culture Week, I have been at the monastery for a week. So far, I am having a great time. I have been teaching, taking part in daily rituals, and learning about Buddhism and its philosophical endeavors. It has been lovely! ”

Volunteer Abroad FAQs

For most of World Endeavors’ volunteer programs, applicants must be 18 or older, although we make exceptions on a case-by-case basis. The good news is there is no maximum age for our volunteer abroad programs.

Unfortunately, we cannot offer any volunteer programs for free. We value the impact our programs make, the partners we work with, and the overall experience of our participants. To provide the best volunteer abroad experience, we require participants to pay volunteer program fees.

Volunteering abroad enhances your resume by showcasing your cultural adaptability, global perspective, problem-solving skills, language proficiency, leadership, teamwork, initiative, and interpersonal abilities. It highlights your willingness to step out of your comfort zone, make a positive impact, and work effectively in diverse settings, making you a valuable candidate with a broader skill set and a strong sense of civic responsibility.

There are plenty of ways to make volunteering abroad affordable and fit within your budget. Check out our fundraising page for guidance on to fundraise for your volunteer abroad program.

The optimal location for volunteering abroad depends on your interests, skills, and the causes you’re passionate about. Whether it’s teaching in a rural community, conserving wildlife in a biodiverse region, contributing to healthcare initiatives in underserved areas, or participating in sustainable development projects, the best place to volunteer abroad is where your strengths align with the needs of the local community, fostering meaningful and lasting positive impact. Browse all our volunteer abroad programs to see which project and destination stands out most.

The specifics differ based on the destination and volunteer project you choose, not to mention visa regulations and requirements fluctuate periodically. As part of our enrollment procedure, our team will guide you through the steps needed to secure a visa if it’s deemed essential for your volunteer program and destination.

World Endeavors rigorously tracks travel advisories and exclusively organizes programs where safety is guaranteed, so when you choose to volunteer abroad with us, you don’t need to worry if you’ll be safe.

Our dedication to volunteer safety involves several measures, including a preparatory guide, continuous local assistance, on-site experts, thorough orientations before and after arrival, extensive travel medical coverage, and staff certified in Mental Health First Aid. Your well-being is our priority, ensuring you can flourish as a volunteer abroad with confidence!

How to apply for a Volunteer Abroad Program

You’ve decided to volunteer abroad – congratulations! Applying for your World Endeavors program is easy and stress-free. We can’t wait to get you on your way!

STEP 1
EXPLORE & ASK

Research and compare. If you can’t decide on a program, we can guide you toward the best fit.

STEP 2
SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION

Fill out our online application form to share all your relevant details with our team.

STEP 3
ENROLL & PREPARE

Receive your official acceptance and enroll. We’ll give you all the info you need to get ready!

STEP 4
START YOUR ADVENTURE!

You’ve researched, planned and saved. Now you’re ready. It’s time to PUT YOURSELF OUT THERE!