The Impact of Projects Abroad

We believe that the impact of Projects Abroad is good. We promote cultural exchange and we make projects work which otherwise would not exist or else would be under-funded or understaffed. We provide new benefits and services for poor people living in the countries where we work and we work to improve the social and physical environment around the developing world. We also provide new opportunities and perhaps a new vision for volunteers. In the long-run, we sincerely hope that we bring more understanding into the world; this is something we can't measure but at least we can all agree that Projects Abroad does a lot more good than harm!

We have tried here to analyse our human and environmental impact in a little more detail:

Projects Abroad -The Human Impact

Our Volunteers

Without volunteers there would be no Projects Abroad. It is thanks to the three and a half thousand volunteers who go to work in a developing country every year, that we are able to continue functioning. Our prime responsibility is to them and we take this responsibility seriously. We employ many staff in every country where we work, who are dedicated to providing the services, guidance and support that ensure our volunteers' experience is as hassle-free as possible. We are usually successful, as you can see from our many Volunteers Stories.

Host-Families

We normally place our volunteers in local host-families. This provides these families with a regular income - we always pay above the market rate - and this enables them to afford additional benefits, such as extended education for their children or better access to healthcare. It also develops cultural understanding - on both sides - but perhaps most importantly for our younger volunteers: perhaps the experiences they have today will help to shape their attitudes when they become the opinion-formers of tomorrow.

Partner organisations

Two principles govern our relationship with partner organisations in developing countries where our volunteers work. The first is that we never replace local employment with volunteering; volunteering organisations that send people to developing countries for long periods run the risk of taking over local jobs; we never do this. Our second principle is that we always ensure that there is no financial cost - or any other outlay - by local partner organisations.

Projects Abroad makes a number of donations to our partner organisations but does not make regular payments because this could compromise the long-term running of these organisations; it is vital that they remain financially independent. Donations can take many forms, from basic materials like school books and pens to grander donations such as the ambulance we bought for a hospital in India, or the classroom block we built at a school in Peru. Recently we made a large contribution to the State Maternity Hospital in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where we have placed volunteers now for a number of years; this hospital is incredibly important to the expectant mothers of Mongolia; you can learn more about this story here. In the end, however, our relationship with our partners is not primarily financial, although we recognise the importance of finance; we are there to help with volunteers.

We have recently partnered a charitable trust, the Reconstruction Project, which supports a variety of projects and also provides assistance for volunteers from challenging backgrounds in developed countries.

Our Staff

Projects Abroad employs two hundred and fifty people around the world. Because our overseas colleagues are directly employed by Projects Abroad, rather than an intermediary or agency, we accept direct responsibility for their training and development within our global organisation.

Projects Abroad - The Environmental Impact

If you are an organisation that offers volunteering projects in the developing world, the inescapable fact is that you are going to have to rely on flying and we recognise that flying contributes to climate change. But this has to be put into context. Our volunteers travel across the world to do an average of 2.6 months of free work in some of the countries that need help most. Once they have finished this work the majority will spend a period travelling, bringing even more money into the local economies. This cannot be viewed in the same way as flying thousands of miles to spend a week at a luxury resort.

As a global organisation, Projects Abroad also has to fly its own staff around the world on a regular basis. We take responsibility for this by working to offset our own carbon emissions. Every year Projects Abroad puts additional funds, in excess of any sum we have been quoted by any carbon-offsetting organisation, into planting trees and supporting in other ways the important work our volunteers continue to do on our Conservation & Environment Projects.

These projects are involved with animal protection, sustainable agriculture, reforestation and conservation work around the world on land and at sea. They tend to run as partnerships with local branches of environmental organisations and government departments, such as SEMARNAT (Department of Environmental Affairs and Natural Resources) in Mexico and the Department for Wildlife Conservation in Sri Lanka. All projects have recognised scientific and developmental merit, and our volunteers work alongside professional experts.