About the placement

How well do you know your projects?

Although we are approached regularly by organisations looking for volunteers, we only take on a few new projects each year. Most come from personal relationships that we have developed while travelling and living overseas and we select and vet our projects very carefully. We visit all projects personally and do not send volunteers to do anything we wouldn’t want to do / haven’t done ourselves.

What support will I receive?

You will be fully introduced to the project including any relevant training and the local team will support you throughout your placement.

As well as the PoD team at the project, you will have the continued support of the PoD UK team.  We visit our placements regularly and are available to support you by email or telephone while you are away.

We believe very strongly in providing a strong support structure for volunteers.

What is your commitment to green / ethical standards?

The majority of our placements are in the developing world and often the people and the environment are vulnerable and sensitive. Our care for these places is the driving force behind our arranging placements for volunteers. For this reason we are extremely concerned to ensure that our impact is always positive and never damaging.

When setting up new placements we evaluate the social, economic and environmental impact and identify ways to maximise the benefit to the local projects and minimise any negative impact on them.  We then visit our projects regularly to ensure that we only work with projects that we know are ethically run and are making a genuine difference.

We are very conscious of the potential for environmental impact due to our volunteers travelling internationally and we are pro-actively trying to minimise this in the UK and overseas, in order ensure a healthy world for future travellers. As well as initiatives in our UK office, we work with an Amazon research charity to help protect an area of rainforest as well as developing strategies to protect rainforests for the future.

We are a member of Responsible Travel and have a full responsible travel policy.

Do I need any specific skills?

For most of our projects no specific skills are required, just energy, enthusiasm and a willingness to get involved!  If there are any specific skill requirements we state them on the project pages.

Do I need any language skills?

There is no requirement to speak any local languages on our projects although it is always a good thing to make some effort to learn the local language and the people you meet and work with will be very appreciative of your efforts. You could buy a language CD before you go which would give you a head start.

You will find that people working in the tourist areas of the countries we place volunteers in speak some level of English, and as long as you listen carefully and speak slowly using simple words and phrases, you should have no problems communicating in these areas.

Can I volunteer with a friend / partner?

Yes, we welcome friends and partners on to all our projects.  In some locations it is also possible to do different projects but to live together.  For all our projects we give a discount to friends and partners who apply together.

How many other volunteers will be there?

This depends on the project so please see our project pages for more details - for each project we state the average number of volunteers at the project that can be expected at any one time although please bear in mind this number can vary considerably.

What is the age range of volunteers?

We receive a wide mix of volunteer ages and backgrounds and we find that this adds to the volunteering experience.  About 25% of our volunteers are 18-20 years old, the remaining 75% spread from 21-75 years old.

What about accommodation?

All of our placements either include accommodation or offer for it to be arranged for you.  Please see the pages about each project for more details of accommodation and living arrangements.

As volunteering is a challenging and demanding experience we do always try to provide safe, clean and comfortable accommodation, but it can not normally be compared to the standard of accommodation on normal holiday trips.