Voluntary service abroad 2020, 2021 (africa, asia, south america, europe)

If you want to get involved as a volunteer abroad, you will find a colorful jumble of regulated volunteer services, programs and organizations: researched by the state or independently as flexible volunteer work, with children, in environmental protection or development cooperation, in Europe or overseas. It is often difficult to compare the various voluntary services abroad, but there are sometimes big differences. B. Duration, job offer or regions of employment. We have fought our way through the various offers so that you can keep track of your search. The infographics show the pros and cons of different Alternatives and help you decide which volunteer service is right for you.

If you have got a general overview here, we recommend these pages to go into more detail:

Table of Contents

Regulated voluntary service abroad or flexible volunteering

A voluntary engagement abroad

  • voluntary,
  • without intention to work,
  • abroad,
  • done for a charitable cause.

The participants are working on a social, ecological or cultural project abroad, unpaid or for a small fee. The latter, in particular, distinguishes voluntary services from professional activities on an international level or in development cooperation.

Basically, there are two different forms of helping abroad that need to be distinguished: regulated voluntary services and flexible volunteering.

1. Regulated voluntary services

This is what this section “Voluntary Services Abroad” is all about.

Regulated voluntary services represent precisely defined funding programs that are clearly regulated by state or European guidelines.

When there was still military service in Germany, participation in the programs that already existed at that time could partially replace this military service.

Precise regulate, could weirservice replace – therefore our choice of words: regulated voluntary services.

There are currently the following regulated voluntary services in Germany that take place abroad:

  • weltwärts
  • International Youth Voluntary Service (IJFD)
  • kulturweit
  • European Voluntary Service (EVS)
  • As well as the following hardly used services
  • Voluntary Social Year (FSJ) abroad
  • Voluntary ecological year (FÖJ) abroad
  • Other service abroad (ADiA)

The Federal Voluntary Service (BFD) basically takes place Not held abroad.

So there are no organizations behind these terms, but support programs. Unfortunately, this is often mixed up in the media.

Non-profit organizations can use these programs to apply for a grant to volunteer positions and, if successful, will become so-called sponsoring organizations.

Accordingly, you cannot apply to weltwärts or the IJFD, but only to a sponsoring organization that offers a position financed by the weltwärts or IJFD program.

Nor can you find yourself an NGO anywhere in Africa, Asia, North or South America, Europe or Australia / Oceania and then apply for funds yourself directly via these programs. Funding can only be given to non-profit associations and only with a long lead time.

The bodies financed in this way must comply with the guidelines from which the sponsoring organizations must not deviate.

If there is scope, e.g. B. in terms of duration, the sponsoring organization set the exact framework, not you. You have to think of it as a vacancy for an internship or a job.

If e.g. B. a weltwärts position is advertised with

  • Start: 01.09.2020
  • Duration: 11 months
  • Location: Durban, South Africa

you can’t say: “I would like to go to Cape Town or Ghana for three months from September 15th, 2020.”

The only choice you have is to apply for a job or not.

A propos application: in this respect, too, vacancies are filled as part of regulated voluntary services such as internships or jobs. Anyone interested can apply, but ultimately only one person gets the job. According to a study from 2017, an average of four applications are placed on one job. In the case of particularly attractive positions, there may well be considerably more competition.

It is positive to note that the funding conditions make the financial conditions for participation considerably cheaper.

2. Flexible volunteering

For us, flexible volunteering is everything that does not run through the regulated voluntary services. This can take place under work camp, volunteering, voluntary work, some organizations even use the term voluntary service or private law voluntary service. Unfortunately there is no uniform vocabulary.

All projects here on wegweiser-freiwilligenarbeit.com fall into this category.

With flexible volunteering, there are significantly more choices, so you can choose what you want to do where for how long. Simply flexible.

How flexible depends on the respective volunteer organization, sometimes also on the individual project. Sometimes there are a few start dates spread over the year, but sometimes you can also set the start date and duration individually. This also makes it possible to combine several projects in several countries.

In addition, application procedures in the narrower sense are relatively rare; there is usually an application procedure.

Unfortunately, this flexibility comes at a price, because this form of help abroad rarely benefits from public subsidies. With all flexible volunteer projects, you have to finance the costs that inevitably result from the implementation yourself and therefore have to pay a participation fee. We explain in detail what costs these are and why they can quickly amount to several hundred and even several thousand euros in our article Why do I have to pay for volunteering abroad?

Sending organization, sponsoring organizations – what is that?

Behind the projects are the so-called sending or sponsoring organizations, which work together with the partner organizations in the countries of operation. They take care of the application or registration process, prepare the participants for their stay abroad and do everything organizational. There are several hundred of these organizations in German-speaking countries and internationally.

Target countries of the individual volunteer services abroad

Depending on the content, competent authority and financial means, the regulated voluntary services send the participants to different regions of the world. The basic rule is: if there is no funding, then no job. No program offers the entire spectrum from Africa and Asia, through South America and Central America to the industrialized countries in Australia and Oceania, North America and Europe – apart from flexible volunteering. Since the volunteers finance your project themselves, all possibilities are open.

Minimum age and maximum age of voluntary services abroad

While the Federal Voluntary Service (which, incidentally, can only be carried out in Germany and therefore does not appear here further) is also accessible to people who have already exceeded 30, the public sector is currently still of the opinion that this population group does not deserve funding abroad.

Because there is only a selection for young people up to 26 years, there are fewer opportunities up to 28 years and for young people over 30 there is actually only the flexible volunteer work.

The same applies to minors up to the age of 18 who want to volunteer abroad before or immediately after they graduate from high school.

Voluntary service application – already be active in 2019 for departure 2020

However, this diversity also has disadvantages, because there is no central job exchange, but there are different application procedures and periods. For the volunteers, this means a lot of time in the search for their dream job as well as job interviews and selection meetings.

Incidentally, all publicly funded volunteer services are similar in one point: Since there are only a limited number of job locations, prospective volunteers cannot avoid a detailed application process.

Application process means u. a. also application deadline. Unfortunately, spontaneous decisions and regulated voluntary services do not go together. The application period usually begins several months to a year before the start of work. Who z. B. wants to do a voluntary service abroad in the 2020-2021 training year, has to apply in the second half of 2019. If you only want to quickly secure a weltwärts or IJFD position after graduation in 2019, you will unfortunately have a look. Fortunately, there is also the alternative of flexible volunteering, which includes all volunteering projects shown on this site.

Even if only German voluntary services are initially described here, almost all voluntary services are also open to Austrians and Swiss, because citizenship of the Union or a visa are sufficient to participate.

The most important voluntary services abroad in a short profile

Flexible volunteering

There is no such thing as impossible. If you register with an independent provider of flexible volunteering, you can be sure that your stay abroad will work. An application in the actual sense is rarely necessary. Our volunteer search makes it easier for you to access hundreds of projects by a reliable volunteer organization.

Further advantages: a large number of jobs worldwide in all areas of application, no maximum age and great flexibility in terms of duration and departure date. The only catch: the costs that the organization of a volunteer program inevitably entails must be borne by the volunteers themselves.

You can find out why organizing volunteer programs is an expensive undertaking and why flexible volunteering is unfortunately not possible for free on our page Why pay for volunteering?

weltwärts

Every year, around 3,500 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 28 who want to work in development cooperation go around the world. Accordingly, it only works in developing and emerging countries, and usually for 12 months. The main topics include education, health, environment and culture. Participation itself does not cost anything, but usually a donation group must be founded (max. 1800 € / year).
More about weltwärts projects

International Youth Voluntary Service (IJFD)

The IJFD is one of the most popular voluntary services alongside weltwärts, but the IJFD is not only available in developing and emerging countries, but also in industrialized countries in Europe, North America and Australia. There are locations all over the world, but almost 50% of the projects take place in Europe. The assignment usually lasts 12 months and takes place in the social or ecological area as well as in peace and reconciliation work. If you want to participate, you must not be older than 26 at the end of your service and usually have to found a donor group (€ 3,000-4,000 / year).
More about IJFD sponsors, jobs and projects

European Voluntary Service (EVS)

The EVS is the voluntary service of the EU and offers particularly comfortable framework conditions. In addition to a maximum travel cost share of 10%, volunteers actually pay nothing. The catch: You cannot get to the southern hemisphere with the EVS because the countries of deployment are limited to Europe and the immediate vicinity. It starts for volunteers between 18 and 30 who are committed for 2-12 months.
More about EVS and its Europe-wide database

kulturweit

culture-wide is probably the most political voluntary service. As a declared part of German foreign policy, B. ensure "increased visibility of German institutions of German foreign cultural and educational policy". The Federal Foreign Office, as the responsible ministry, can afford to do so by creating quite comfortable conditions for the 18 to 26-year-old participants.
Learn more about how to apply for culture-wide

Voluntary Social Year (FSJ) and Voluntary Ecological Year (FÖJ) abroad

Since the introduction of weltwärts and IJFD, the importance of FSJ abroad rapidly, since the FSJ was originally designed as a domestic service and its expansion abroad was actually only a temporary solution. It is aimed at volunteers aged 18-26 who are interested in social, cultural or sport projects.
More about the FSJ in Africa, Asia or South America
More about the FÖJ abroad

Other service abroad (ADiA)

The Other Service has been bringing young people abroad with the aim of international understanding since the 1980s and is the only regulated voluntary service with no age limit. Since the ADiA is not publicly funded, the number of participants is also declining here.
More about ADiA

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