My wife and I would like to volunteer for a developing nation this summer, preferably in South America. We'd like to leverage our professional skill sets, although barring that working on a house or other project would be fine as well.
Have any of you volunteered your BA skills in another country? What was the experience like? Do you know of NGO's or governments who would look for professional volunteers to help kick-start or develop IT or business projects?
Thanks in advance.
This sounds like a great endeavor. I have been to South America as a volunteer but did not leverage my professional skills - at least not much.
Having said that, I would be that most of the NGO have business/systems analysis needs and you might be able help out that way if those organizations are headquartered in the country of your choice. Another option is doing general computer/software training and help which many organizations need in the field. When I was in Peru - I did a number of small projects for the local office of the organization I worked with such as: troubleshooting their PCs, creating templates for their document needs, teaching staff the finer points of applications such as Word, created a small MS Access DB & UI for one of their data tracking needs, etc.
There are also organizations looking for volunteers to work with kids to teach computers, business skills, etc.
Good luck to you!
I would love to hear what you guys end up doing?
- Adrian
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