Money Makes The World Go Round

I thought it would be interesting for everyone back home to know about the financial end of volunteering. It can vary alot from agency to agency, and the process is different with all of them. I researched about the many different organizations and ended up applying to four different ones. There are websites that rate the organizations by participant so that you can get a feel for what their trip was like, and these helped me a lot in my decision process. One of the organizations I chose, sounded really good on the website but all the volunteers had fairly bad experiences so I crossed this one off my list. All of the organizations require fees to be paid. This usually covers room and board. After all my research and getting accepted, I decided to go with International Volunteer HQ (IVHQ). I decided to go with them because they were one of the only organizations that let you choose a starting and ending date. None of the other organizations that had good ratings were flexible. THey are also one of the cheapest organizations to go thought. One of the things they pride themselves on is that they don't charge anymore money than is necessary to cover living costs for the volunteer. Many people don't understand why you should have to pay to volunteer. The reasoning behind paying is so that the organization your woking for doesn't lose money paying for the volunteers housing and food. I wouldn't want to go work at an orphanage and make them lose money because they are feeding me too.

The actual cost of volunteering for me was about $2,400.00. My plane ticket was about $900.00 and the agency fee was about $1520.00.

Everyday costs include bus fairs, some food, and money for copying worksheets for my classes. I'm also trying to buy things for the orphanages and classrooms I'm in as I see needs.

With all the money you al sent me I raised about $2000.00. This money helped me get here and is paying for all the stuff I'm doing for the kids. We've found a new opportunity to help at a government funded baby house, a family who we can build a house fore, and we're going to have a birthday party for all the girls at La Punta! All the travel I've been doing has been paid for with my own money from graduation presents and working all summer (and the money i saved working in past years). The good news is that travel in peru is not costly if you don't fly. Because of this i have been able to see a lot of really cool places, without spending hardly anything!