Making Sense of . . .
What Responsible Volunteer Travel means at Avella Sights
Nowadays, there are many operators offering volunteer abroad projects. Unfortunately, with so many, there can be a big difference in quality and standards.
That’s why it’s important for you to research which volunteer abroad organizations you can trust. This will help you make an informed decision that enables you to make a genuine difference, and keeps you safe while you’re overseas. In other words, it will help you find out which organizations are responsible and provide ethical volunteering opportunities.
At Avella Sights, our focus has been sustainable projects only.
As potential candidates for industry leader in responsible travel, we created a checklist that we always follow, and that we encourage all other organizations to do the same.
The 8-part checklist determines how we define Responsible Volunteering:
1. There’s real evidence of impact
Organizations should be transparent about their impact. We believe best practice is for organizations to publish an annual impact report.
In addition, organizations focused on sustainable volunteering abroad must work towards long-term goals and have robust monitoring and evaluation procedures in place. This is essential to measure impact.
At Avella Sights, we work toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and set up our own extensive monitoring and evaluating tools, such as our Management Plans and the Avella Impact Database. This structure also means that you can participate in responsible travel last minute, as these measures are in place year-round at all of our projects, and you can join at any time.
Concerned about what kind of impact you can have if you only travel for a short time? Read our blog about short-term volunteering to learn how you can still make a difference on our sustainable volunteer opportunities.
2. Don’t leave your safety up to chance
It’s easy for a volunteering organization to say ‘safety is paramount’. We recommend you dig deeper and find out what are an organization’s exact safety measures and precautions.
Avella Sights is the gold standard in safety and staff support because:
- We have a Risk Management Team who is responsible for implementing and regularly checking our Health and Safety protocols.
- All our projects, accommodation, and transport are regularly vetted and risk assessed (risk assessments are available on request).
- All destination staff are screened through Criminal Record Checks and receive regular training, including First Aid.
- We have Crisis Management Plans and Emergency Response Plans for each destination to make sure we’re prepared for any eventuality.
- We have our own In-House Medical Advisor
- We have rigorous child safeguarding protocols.
- We provide thorough pre-departure preparation and cultural awareness training.
You can learn more about how we keep volunteers like you safe overseas in our popular blog.
3. In-country staff support
Before you book a volunteer trip abroad, it’s critical to always find out who will be responsible for your safety and welfare.
We carefully vet our staff, ensuring they meet our high standards for safety and responsibility. Wherever you travel to, you’ll receive the same level of care and attention from our teams on the ground. These staff members are locally-based, meaning they understand the area and how to keep you safe.
For the duration of your trip, our staff are contactable 24/7.
4. Find out how your fee is spent
Volunteering organizations should always be transparent about where your money is going. An organization should be able to provide you with a clear breakdown of how your program fee is spent. You can read our breakdown that explains why we charge a fee.
We also encourage you to find out what’s included in your fee and what’s not. Our price might be higher than some other volunteering organizations but we’re proud that we never include any hidden fees. Our program fee includes everything as standard, including things like:
- Airport pickups/drop offs
- Ground transportation to and from your placement
- Three meals a day
- Training
- International banking and credit card fees
We don’t like surprises and don’t like being tricked, and we don’t expect you do either!
5. Make sure projects are sustainable
Sustainable travel means that giving back doesn’t end when you go home. Instead, projects should continue to benefit the environment and local communities. Some organizations only visit a destination when they have volunteers. That means that for a couple of weeks a year volunteers will spend time supporting a project, but then the project lacks support for the rest of the year.
We can receive volunteers year-round. This helps ensure all our projects offer sustainable and ethical travel with long-term goals.
All our projects work towards long-term goals. These goals have been set after rigorous needs assessments in collaboration with local communities. They’re also linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Each project has its own Management Plan that allows your daily tasks to be specifically linked to the long-term goals we set for the project. To help us monitor and evaluate our progress, we’ve built the Avella Impact Database and we are to publish our impact every year in our Impact Reports beginning 2023.
6. Getting placement information upfront
We believe it’s important that you receive full details of your specific project and accommodation before you travel. How else can you be expected to come prepared and make the best of your time abroad from the start?
In order to hit the ground running, and make an impact from day one, we make sure that you receive detailed information at least one month before you travel via your personal webpage. This information includes details about your:
- Work placement
- Role
- Accommodation
- Host family members
- Resources to start preparing activities/tasks
- Contact details of our staff in destination.
You can always reach out to us if you have any questions.
7. Can you trust an organization’s integrity
Integrity is a core value for us, both for our volunteers and interns, as well as the communities we work in. We therefore believe all volunteering organizations should have their own policies and protocols detailing how they deal with:
- Child protection
- Animal welfare
- Medical ethics
- Volunteer code of conduct
- Health and safety
A responsible volunteering organization should always have well-documented policies that are available to read before you book with them.
8. Are skills matched to a need
Volunteers without professional skills can make an impact, but only if the organization makes sure the necessary structures are in place. At Avella Sights, we always make sure:
- Your role is to support local professionals
- You are assigned a local supervisor
- You have the right experience if a project needs it
- Our Project Experts match your experience to the perfect project
- We organize workshops and training in your destination to build your skills
- Our native English speakers assist with English lessons
Read our blog to learn more about how we match skills and experience to our different projects.
Avella Sights follows each point on this checklist. As we strive to become an industry leader, we also encourage all other volunteer-sending organizations to follow the same high standards.