"Uganda Craft Production" Copyright © Big Beyond, All Rights Reserved

UnXpected

David Clemmons, Publisher/Editor of The VolunTourist, responds to some of your questions and emails. (Additional questions and responses are posted on the VolunTourism.org Blog)

Volume 8, Issue 1 Reader Comments & Other Mail

Hello!

My name is Melissa and I currently work for Edge of Africa, we are a NGO volunteer company working in Knysna, South Africa. I came across your site and it has a lot of really good ideas, I was just wondering if there was a to promote our volunteer programs though the traveller part of your website. Look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind Regards,

Dear Melissa,

Thank you for your email and for expressing interest in sharing your information with volutnourists and others who may be interested in connecting with your programs.

As an educational website and an information-rich portal, VolunTourism.org focuses on building awareness of programs, but it does not serve as a promotional outlet. We would recommend connecting with other sites such as VolunteerAbroad.com or Idealist.org.

Hope this helps.

[Return To The Top]

"Ethiopia Hamer Tribe Kids at School" Copyright © Big Beyond, All Rights Reserved

Hi there,

I am contacting you on behalf of Kuoni because I saw that you recently wrote a lovely post about their Holiday Health experiment. I also noticed that you to hear more from your community if any of them made the final cut.

I'm working on this with the PR team at Kuoni and we were wondering if you would like to share more about this with your readers from us?

I'd be more than happy to share anything from video diaries from the contestants, an infographic illustrating the research or the findings of the experiment when they are released.

Do you think you would be interested in this?
If so, please let me know the sort of thing you would like to hear so we can make sure we are as relevant to you and your readers as possible.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Caz

Dear Caz,

Thank you for your email.

I believe there will definitely be interest from voluntourists and readers of our blog and newsletter regarding your program. First, it is a unique partnership, one that demonstrates new thinking and new collaboration. Second, there is likely to be some interesting data to come from your research. This would serve our audiences and give them something to refer to that is different than existing research.

Finally, it would be good to hear about the experiences of the individuals who actually participate in your program. Their responses to the journey will provide yet another set of voices to the body of literature that has been increasing the world over during the last five years or so.

We look forward to following up with you in the near future and learning more about this program and what you have discovered from your research.

[Return To The Top]

"Traditions & Customs Come to Life" Copyright © Big Beyond, All Rights Reserved

Dear David,

After reading the article on al jazeera i am curious to your plans around   the first Voluntourism/Private Development Assistance (PDA) data collection platform. 

Started as a voluntourist i am now involved in platforms like www.kindmankind.net, www.amaidi.org and the burmese volunteer program. 

I would love to see a platform with better matchingfunctionality and happy to cooperate where possible. Let me know if you can share more info.

greets,

"Collecting turtle eggs on Tybee Island" Copyright © Mermaid Cottages, All Rights Reserved

Teun

Teun,

Thanks for this email.

We are very interested in looking at this new approach to voluntourism in the months ahead.

With support from the Inter-American Development Bank, some municipalities in Bolivia, and other interested parties in Latin America and throughout the world, we are very determined to bring this project to fruition.

While we are not certain at this point when we will be able to launch such an effort, we are very determined to involve as many stakeholders from the various audiences - tourism sector, NGO sector, voluntourists, and local communities - as possible. The more we are able to bring these stakeholders to the table and to speak with them directly, the better chance we have of creating a service that indeed represents what is needed and what stakeholders are interested in having access to.

We are hopeful that the unique approach we are taking will also bring non-traditional voluntourism stakeholders to the table as well. Financial institutions looking for innovative financing measures and development approaches will be one of our target audiences.

We thank you for your interest and look forward to staying in contact in the future.

[Return To The Top]