Volunteering as a fulltime career in India/elsewhere - thoughts & suggestions please

sudheer poppa

My background is in finance with good deal of international exposure (with a fortune 20) into most avenues of finance and corporate world like - book entry, reporting, cost planning, resource planning, business controls audit, retail banking, ISO, six sigma and other quality systems, strategic planning, capacity planning, project and program management, human resource accounting and planning, basic exposure to local legal accounting of most of the asian countries, TCE, process reengineering, controlling, budgeting (capital, project, human resource, capacity), relation management, people management, managing cross cultural differences to name the main stuff.

Now I am thinking of exiting the corporate rat race and entering into full time mainstream volunteering. When I think of it as a concept, a few BIG names come into the mind like CRY, Helpage India, Worldvision, UN, Freedom foundation and a few others. Then there are the innumerable small names and invisble organisations who do a world of good but does not have an almost corporate like clout of the Big names which is both good and bad.

Being the guy who has always bothered about the strategic fit, I am a little unsure on what I should be doing. Personally as far as it is helping humans, I am open to any kind of work - with children, disabled (mentally or physically), old age, disaster agencies, tribesmen, education, skills upliftment, counselling/coaching, just about any avenue where humans are involved. Not really into the environment bit (green peace) or the animals bit (WWF). It should pay for my food, shelter and say one modest vacation in a year nothing more.

So the obvious questions coming across to me are the following,
a) Do I work at an asia pacific or at a country level with a big name organisation which would be a perfect leverage for that organisation as well for my past experience.
b) Do I work with a small agency helping them with best practices and concepts available currently to the large organisations only there by streamlining their operations.
c) Do I go solo and give consulting to small agencies (in lines to (b) above) on temporary basis and move on to another agency
d) Do I wait to see more of world before taking the plunge. I just turned 27 with about 5 years of full time and 2 years of part time work experience.

As an important part of my life in the past year of so (my extended family), I choose to raise this thought here first. So let me know your thoughts on this idea, what I should be mindful of and what I should worry about, how should I go about it, more over if you personally know of people in this field, let me know of their reference so that I can get input from them.

(for those of you who may want to ask if I have done it in the past, please check my third link in the signature which is my only experience so far other than some generic work with Rotary)

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SHIMLA

Do what you like and like what you do.

It dosen't matter what you do, as long as you can justify it to yourself and get happiness out of it.

All the best !

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machadinha

Hi Sudheer,

For what it's worth I (and others) have been compiling a lot of links to organizations after the tsunami disaster at http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2004/12/24072.shtml . That article has grown pretty massive and I should order it into a site or blog of its own really but it will have to do for now. It's also in Dutch but the links will lead you to many English sites if you have a little patience to scroll through it. It lists many grassroots organizations and some promising-looking bigger ones as well. You'd have to judge their merits yourself.

One group who I've been in touch with and who you may know is AID India who are currently working in Chennai and surroundings, http://www.aidindia.org/ or more specifically http://www.aidindia.org/CMS/ . They claim to work with what they call fulltime volunteers although I don't know how that works with them or what it entails.

Good luck with your pursuits and I hope it works out for you.

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sudheer poppa

Hello Shimla - I believe in what you mentioned and I could say that it is my pet success secret too. However, I am not really doing this for myself but for a common good. I will like what I do in most of the cases where I know I can make a positive impact to another human. But I want to start in the right note and in the best place that may need me for what I have become. If it was something like a disaster, I just need to pack up and leave without thinking much. But as this is something long term I would prefer a learned decision with inputs from people who know more than me. Hence this thread.

And machadinha - thanks for the wonderful compilation. Unfortunatly it is in dutch and a bit impossible for me to comprehend the write ups. But I am planing on going through the links one by one in the coming days and learn from them. On the whole I am not really looking forward to Tsunami relief anymore for I am getting information from Nagapattinam on the negative aspects of relief there. I am planning to visit them again and I shall write on the current not too ideal scene of the relief first hand. I CANNOT accept people trying to use humanitarianism as an advertising plank or for their commercial interests.

machadinha

Of course, like I said one upcoming project is to re-order the relevant stuff into a blog or something for easy international reference. Till then, sorry about the Dutchiness You'll find many not-so relevant articles there but some good organizations as well I hope.

For relevant and serious long-term volunteering you may find these useful (just off the top of my head, they may not all be):
http://www.snvworld.org/
ITDG -- Intermediate Technology Development Group
Practical Answers to Poverty:
http://www.itdg.org/
Duryog Nivaran
South Asian network for Disaster Mitigation
http://www.duryognivaran.org/
http://www.adrc.or.jp/
Asian Disaster Reduction Center(ADRC)
http://www.adpc.net/
ADPC -- Asian Disaster Preparedness Center
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/dbc.nsf/...00147-LKA&rc=3
ReliefWeb
(OCHA -- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs)
http://www.southasiadisasters.net/
Disaster Mitigation Institue India
For community based disaster risk reduction
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/tsunami/

(Emphasis is of course on tsunami relief but most of these work in a much broader field.)

machadinha

nb LP's TT forum has opened up a new branch "Post Tsunami Recovery" at http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/ca...s.cfm?catid=70 . The emphasis is on said disaster of course but I'm sure some useful general pointers might spring up there.

phreako1

sudheer,
if you don't care about the money, i would advise you to go and work with a smaller, grassroots organisation. I am, as a foreigner, currently working for an ngo in rural andhra pradesh. It is really hard for these kinds of organisations to find young, highly skilled indian professionals who are prepared to go live and work in relatively remote areas (well, it's only 3 hours from b'lore) for relatively little money. And that's what they need, because their donors demand more and more professional management standards, which puts alot of pressure on the staff that should be concentrating on fieldwork.
Pm me for more info or contacts, i know of quite alot of organisations and consultants in the south. I can't assure you that i'll be able to reply the first two weeks though.
good luck.

sudheer poppa

Going through most of those sites have been a humbling experience.. Shall say more on that later.

Just a note to thank all you guys who responded in pm's and here.

Pherako, looking forward to catching up with you over one of the weekends. would love to know more about the organisations that you are aware of. Shall pm you.

landoormama

Hello Sudheer , I read about your xperiences with the tsunami victims earlier you surely have done a great job ..I wish you the very best in your future endeavours .but a word of caution.. be careful in selecting an N.G.O , whereas quite afew N.G.O'sare dedicated ..but many N.G.O's in India are a money making racket .. beware of these ...wishing you the very best .

shanthi

Your message was interesting. I'm going to just point out a couple of things in reply to you, hopefully.......if the old grey cells are working this early in the morning!

I can understand how many would-be volunteers would rather work/volunteer for a well-known Charitable cause.....Missionaries of Charity, World Vision, GOAL and the like. Yes they also do very well in the "donations" and funding departments. I used to wonder why this was until I became an unpaid director for a local registered Irish Charity. We've only been going about 7 years and have obviously not been able to do a lot of the things we had in mind because funding and donations are not forthcoming for unknowns such as us. I also found that when I advertised for Sponsors/Funders for a project I had in India three years ago, that because Companies would not get the high level of acknowledgement/Praise/advertising coverage/self-satisfaction from a relatively unknown Charity/Project - that they would not consider sponsoring or donating to the Project/Charity. This also goes for volunteers who want to spend some time doing good. It seems that way, anyway.....sadly. There are many of us around that have good hearts, and have dedicated our lives to those less fortunate than ourselves, only to find that most of these companies, and, sadly some volunteers too are of the opinion that when they give...they also want to receive....badly.

Now, please don't get me wrong! I have had some marvellous volunteers who have joined me in different projects in India, though when it comes to funding the story remains the same. It's a catch 22 - you gotta advertise to get yourself up higher on the larger charities ladder - but to advertise costs a fortune, and you do not spend donated funding on admin like the majority of the larger charities - every cent you get goes to the people it was designed/donated for - neither do you take a salary or stipend etc...

Yup, that's the catch 22!
As most would-be writers will tell you, when it comes to wanting to get their first book published the publishing houses want that they have an agent first of all. The agent will then tell them that they have first had to be published before he is willing to take you on......so it is with us smaller, unknown Charities - people want acknowledgement and coverage if they are going to sponsor you and don't just want a "thank you so very much......" letter - rather they insist on at least a half-page thankyou in a National newspaper or some other acknowledgement that us "smallies" can't afford - and that's the least they ask for, believe me. The larger Charities do astounding work - that's a fact - and thank God for them. Now look at their admin costs - now look at their stipends, or indeed, salaries! Now look at where your small donation goes........ It would be so nice if people would stop and think, and even write to the smaller charities to ask them for a copy of their accounts (most of us have an "open-books" policy where we will give an authenticated synopsis of our fiscal year to anyone who asks for it) and then look at their mission statements and then and only then, decide where their donations should go to.

I've had a couple of volunteers stay with us in India who complained that we didn't pay their airfare, didn't get special foods for them (they weren't keen on eating as we did- rice, chicken, ground beef, fruit,etc...) didn't provide this, didn't provide that, and if they hadn't raised 200 dollars for the project prior to coming, we couldn't afford to have them picked up at the airport (25 dollars each way)....didn't give them two days off a week, expected them to work for more than 6 hours a day, you name it, I can probably say we had it!

My belief is that these people went into volunteering for the wrong reasons. Those that have been the most wonderful caring and responsible volunteers normally tell me that they had decided to come and made the decison to do that within 6-8 weeks of the initial thought - they felt that it was something they wanted to do for long time - not that they HAD to do. I believe that our little Charity/Project was more than generous to all the volunteers that came our way - We gave them a clean room and their board for free, we gave them medical assistance for free (that is, if they had had the proper Vacs and medications of course - but we did also help those who had not bothered with these things as they didn't want to spend their money). We took them on trips with the kids - All we asked for (and they knew this before arrival) was that they made themselves available for about 8 hours a day - occassionally on a shift basis, learned to listen and take orders first of all during their "training" period, learned to act responsibly but not to screw around with the rules of the organisation, maybe raise a bit of funding before their arrival (not an absolute necessity) and that they didn't mind working with kids who were sometimes in fairly bad health, and do meanial jobs too like the others who were here. Well, there were some people who wouldn't do any of the above.......believe me. It was sad and still I never went back on my promises of providing the room and board - even though some were adamant after just a week that they couldn't work there any longer. When it became apparant that the person was not going to help out any more and just wanted to go around and do the tourist bit - they were verbally quite agressive when asked to pay 30 dollars a week for their room (inclusive of electricity and the use of the cooking facilities in the kitchen, shower etc..)

Oh God, I hope I never have to go through this again with people - but I know it will happen - Human nature is peculiar - sometimes the very people that come over to help our kids are looking for someone to take care of them, themselves. That's when it doesn't altogether gel-together either - we end up having another "child" for three months to look after. Still most of our volunteers have been precious Gems indeed - and we have sat long into the night analysing their lives and ours, and finally such warm and strong bonds have been forged that could only have been forged in India. India is unique and when she touches you - you're touched forever....you can't shake her off, she follows you wherever you go and invades your mind even in your sleeping hours.

Don't waste your time thinking about the ins and outs of volunteering! If you're in good health, have your airfare plus a few dollars to buy your personal needs stuff, and if your heart is the thing that is pulling you uncontrollably toward those that need your help in India, or wherever - just come. You'll never be turned away - and you will return "home" a richer-by-far person than you ever were and could ever hope to be. Please get something straight though - and again, I beg you that you don't take this the wrong way either! No matter who we are, what charity we operate, what projects we have been following that patronising people who wish only to make changes and do not perhaps understand the nature and culture of the people we are trying to help can only serve to make waves. When ever we begin a new project in India, we have done our research. We have first tried to understand the problem and then sat and thought out how best we can run the project for them. In thinking this out we have always invited the very people/children we are intending to help, to sit with us and help us all figure out how best we can do it! We have never gone into any project thinking that the people/children we wish to assist have been "doing it all wrong and it would be better if they did it this way!" - They have all been doing anything the best way they knew how to, we can suggest a more feasable way, but this is only done when the resources and capabilities of those involved are fully known. We can't change the world, we can only try to make it a little easier for those who are having a hard time handling what life has thrown at them!.

Please, please, don't take this epistle the wrong way - I'm only talking from my heart and sometimes I guess I'm not that good at putting things down in writing - but my heart is in the right place and thank God for this website as most of you dear people here have hearts more precious than gold (hey!, and in todays Market...that's worth a FORTUNE!!)

God bless all here

loon

I think this thread was begun a while back but have you checked out www.charityfocus.org? It was begun by some folks who realized they'd rather spend most of their time doing charitable work than spending it making loads and loads of money. They do a lot of great work. See also www.bethechange.org.

Rob_The_Pom

Hey Sudheer, whatever you decide to do I just want to wish you the very best of luck.

It sounds like you are well qualified, so have you thought of teaching? It may not be 'charitable' work as such (although of course, it can be). But, it is certainly something socially and personally rewarding and can make an enormous positive difference to people's lives.

Best of luck my friend.

Rob

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Nick-H

Great post, Shanti...

I can imagine volunteering and then finding it doesn't work out, or not being suited to the work ---but to expect to be treated as a non-working non-paying guest seems very bad.

I heard from someone last year that a school run a relative positevely discourages interest or visits from non-locals: they have had too much experience of an interested person becoming a sick person needing looking after.

shanthi

Nick, you wouldn't believe the half of it that I've heard from some of my volunteers. Thankfully, the great majority have been absolutely great and I've been SO sorry to see them leave after a few months! Still, gotta always remember we're all different kettles of fish and some were fedwrong stuff before they came to volunteer and therefore expected it to be different than it turned out for them. Most of the time that happens, we've shook hands and called it quits - it's just the odd few who are just a little bit awkward

giuseppina

why not check out www.calcuttarescue.com
they might need you!
good luck!