5 lessons I learnt on my journey of volunteering abroad to kickstart a career in Africa

I chose Africa. Going to a place like Africa is a culture shock to most people from the western world – it literally is a different world with a new set of challenges, difficulties and changes. That’s why this post applies to everyone that wants to volunteer in an underdeveloped country.

Firstly, volunteering your way into a career is about creating connections. I knew this right from the beginning of my journey. I also knew that my most solid way of creating connections was face to face – but there are certain risks associated with going to a country you know nothing about with no connections and I think you need to know them.

The five main lessons that I learned about volunteering abroad are:

1. Have money or financial backing for an exit plan from a volunteer position.

2. You don’t have to have goals when volunteering into a career – but having a general idea of what you think you would enjoy is helpful.

3. If you don’t know anyone in the field that you want to volunteer in, your unfamiliar with the country and you’re alone, start with big volunteer organisations – I’ll tell you why in this post.

4. Research your volunteer positions:

   1. Talk to someone that is from the country and preferably has experience living (preferably a national), working or volunteering there.

   2. Talk to other volunteers that have been on the programme.

   3. Research the country – take any research with a grain of salt – a lot of what we read on the news and hear is either out of touch or focuses on the worst parts of the country. You can cross check what you read with the person that has experience in the country. 

   4. Look online – research their website, Instagram and facebook pages (any social media). Keep in mind that this is the outside perception of the organisation that they want to give – but if they don’t have a website etc – take that as a red flag.

      
      

What I knew that I absolutely had to make by the end of each volunteer programme: Connections

Like I say in my first post Step One: Make the Decision – I didn’t know why I chose to wrap up my whole life and travel overseas to volunteer full time, I just felt that I absolutely had to. A career change to [I don’t know what] made no sense, but I did it anyway.

But right from the beginning of my journey I knew that in order to kickstart any career I had to create professional connections. 

I excel at creating connections face to face and demonstrating that I can work hard and be of value to the organisation. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know why I was there or what I was doing – I was there to make an impression. You should be too.

You don’t have to have goals

In saying that in order to volunteer to kickstart your career, you actually have to book a volunteer programme. When I looked online a conservation programme at Phinda National Reserve, through the African Conservation Experience organisation, caught my eye – I had always enjoyed conservation despite not having been involved in it in years, but I decided that this was going to be my starting point – the thought of hanging around elephants and lions brought me joy.  

But if I had specific goals – maybe I had decided that I wanted to get experience in community development in deprived communities because I wanted to be an aid worker – you can see how the conservation programme in Phinda could be considered a frivolous use of my money. Or if I knew I didn’t like lions – the programme was probably not going to be for me.

So make sure that you are somewhat confident you are going to enjoy the volunteer program. Your feelings towards the volunteer position may change when you get there but we will get to that later on in the post.

Your first steps when considering volunteering abroad

My recommendation: If you don’t know anyone in the field that you want to volunteer in and your unfamiliar with the country – start with big volunteer organisations. I learnt this lesson the hard way.

If you’re in the above situation I recommend big organisations because:

1. Your safety is paramount to them – their international reputations depend on your safety, you understanding the situation of the country before you arrive and your experience.

2. Big organisations will give you an extremely high level of support if something goes wrong – for example medical issues that happen in extremely remote places (I have personal experience in this area)

3. Big organisations have selected partners to work with, websites like volunteer world let most of the organisations put up adverts relatively easily.

   
   

This is not to say that you cannot have a good experience with smaller organisations – but if you are set on smaller organisations, because let’s face it – they are cheaper - you must be hypervigilant. I cover how you should be researching every volunteer programme you’re thinking about below.

It is my personal opinion that big organisations with structured volunteer programmes are what you need when you are alone in a foreign country/continent that has a poor economic position. The African continent is filled with low socio-economic societies that are largely unregulated in a lot of ways. There is a different attitude towards nearly everything – charity regulations, acceptable accounting practices, woman rights, human rights, the law as a whole, animal abuse - some might say that the law provides suggestions rather than rules. This means you have to know when to walk away from situations you can’t change or where you would be putting yourself in danger – this is hard to know when to do when you are still getting the lay of the land or understanding your surroundings – you need help and support.  

I’ve had to walk away twice in 2024 with two different organisations that I arranged volunteer positions with when I was in New Zealand at the start of 2024. The second time, in December 2024, I was only there for a week and I left despite having a work visa and plans to stay with them for 6 months. (Follow me and keep an eye out because I will be writing these experiences down as part of my blog posts).

This is why big organisations that offer you a lot of support are my first port of call. My first and third volunteering experiences were with African Conservation Experience and GVI. I highly recommend these two organisations. These volunteer programmes were expensive, $12,000.00 NZD for 2 months in Phinda Private Reserve and $13,500.00 NZD for 3 months in Karongwe Private Reserve. But the level of support they give their volunteers is incredibly high – they are great safety net for people travelling to volunteer and people with chronic conditions – like my epilepsy – I also just seem to be prone to being in hospital at least once a year.

Big organisations have the resources to provide you with exceptional support in countries where governments struggle to provide basic human rights and are in extreme poverty – basically where there is no resources to support you if you have a bad moment.

For example, I collapsed in May 2024. Phinda Private Reserve is 3 hours from the nearest hospital and I’m epileptic. They had a remote doctor on the phone immediately, they transferred me to a safe location and had me in an ambulance 2 hours later (because that’s how long it took for the ambulance to arrive). After my transfer to the hospital I was met with a bed because a Phinda employee had gone ahead, was familiar with the medical system and made sure I was seen immediately. I was on a drip and discharged later on that night. Soon after, the remote doctor called me regularly to check on me and African Conservation Experience contacted me immediately (while I was still in hospital) checked on me and subsequently helped me with my insurance claim. Phinda and African Conservation Experience made sure I was supported all the way through my ordeal including my recovery. I became functional relatively quickly but it took around 2 weeks for me fully recover. There is also mental health support and general care if you need it.

This is the level of support you need when you don’t have any personal connections that you can rely on to provide the same level of care.

I feel confident to make my own way now and am no longer looking at any structured volunteer programmes – but I have spent the last 10 months shouldering my way around Africa and Europe making connections and seeking opportunities. Your process could be shorter or longer than mine – trust the process. 

Exit plan

If you don’t have enough money for a quick exit plan you need to consider saving more, or being much more equipped to deal with conflict in positions where you have no immediate support available.

My experience with smaller organisations like the ones I walked away from were that they were not as transparent, especially with foreigners, about the culture of the organisations or the realities of the organisations that you’re working for. The two I encountered were relying on westerners being clueless and not knowing that what they were doing was actually underhanded. I found both of these positions on volunteer world, they were both verified, both had a healthy internet presence.

My positions there led to costly exit plans.  

I am older and have more experience. I have travelled but seven years of being a lawyer taught me how to navigate through situations, but more importantly when to abandon them. My life experience made me more equipped to address these difficult situations tactfully as well as having more resource to make a plan.

Unfortunately, I met on these volunteer programmes younger volunteers were stuck – financially and emotionally – by no fault of their own. I cannot stress enough that they had done nothing wrong but were in the middle of a shitshow anyway - and this could happen to you. 

If you don’t have enough money for a quick exit plan you need to consider saving more, or being much more equipped to deal with conflict in positions where you have no immediate support available and are potentially dangerous.

Research plan

Small organisations are more difficult to get a feel for online. It is very hit and miss – they can seem brilliant when you are tucked away in your home country but when you get there you are met with a completely different experience. They have cheaper fees which appeals to more people, but the organisations that they partner with are regularly small under-resourced and rely on additional volunteer funds, when the volunteer gets there, to operate.

Although I acknowledge that not all small local organisations are like this – it is difficult to determine the volunteer organisation partners that will give the volunteers a positive experience, and the partners who have a volunteer mill going – they want the volunteer to have a good experience, but don’t have the resource to make that happen most of the time.

If you don’t care about this, don’t worry about the list – but if you do, you need to make sure that you are researching thoroughly the partnered organisation that you have chosen. You need to:

1. Talk to someone that is from the country and preferably has experience living (preferably a national), working or volunteering there.

2. Talk to other volunteers that have been on the programme.

3. Research the country – take any research with a grain of salt – a lot of what we read on the news and hear is either out of touch or focuses on the worst parts of the country. You can cross check what you read with the person that has experience in the country. 

4. Look online – research their website, Instagram and facebook pages (any social media). Keep in mind that this is the outside perception of the organisation that they want to give.

I hope this post has taught you something new! Follow me to keep tabs on my journey while I global volunteer to kickstart my career into conservation and community development (i think).