The "Color Song" acitvity. Photo/Elizabeth Mullan

Luisa:

A lot of people are worried that they don’t have the right experience or skills to be useful to a volunteering organization. The truth, however, is that most people have something that they can contribute, if they have the creativity to put that skill to good use. I found the below article very inspirational, as it goes to show that interests such as music and art can be just as relevant as other, more traditional development experience.

Elizabeth Mullan is a participant in the Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development program, teaching music to pre-schoolers in Manilla, the Philippines. more…

Rally for Kids with Cancer

Carita:

This week I covered a press conference for a celebrity event in Los Angeles called Rally for Kids with Cancer, and because it deserves all the publicity it can get, I’m going to post my article from TV Guide Magazine here as well:

It’s on! There is a feud brewing at ABC, between Desperate Housewives’ Eva Longoria Parker and Wisteria Lane’s former stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold Julie Benz – but this catfight is for a good cause. On July 30, Longoria Parker, Benz and many other celebrities will compete in a scavenger hunt around Los Angeles in The Rally for Kids With Cancer. more…

Luisa:

I had my very long, reddy-blondy hair cut today, something which I always find quite traumatic. But this time I was able to console myself that I was at least doing something positive for the environment. All the little pieces of hair that fell from my head to the floor (which always seem to be a lot longer than the “inch” the hairdresser assures you will be cut off!) will be swept up, and made into mats which will be used to soak up oil from the slick currently spreading through the US Gulf of Mexico. more…

Luisa:

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Pencils of Promise. Photo: Philip Buiser

My good friend Philip Buiser recently traveled to Laos with an organization called Pencils of Promise. Pencils of Promise builds schools in developing countries, and Philip was on location to document PoP’s work. If you check back often you’ll be able to read about his amazing – dare I say it, life changing – experience, as well as a profile of PoP’s founder Adam Braun.

But first I wanted to share with you some of the footage that came out of the trip. more…

PEACE Project

Luisa:

One of my first volunteering experiences overseas was travelling to Poland with the university organization, AIESEC, in 2004. I joined something called the Poland PEACE Project, which aimed to explore tolerance issues with senior Polish high school students in small towns across the country.

Around twenty recently graduated university students from all around the world gathered in Warsaw. more…

UNFPA M&E Team

Luisa:

I began work as a United Nations Volunteer in 2006. I had applied online (www.unv.org), and was living in Nepal at the time, making interviews for volunteer positions very easy! I was successful in my application to be a Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, working for the Nepal office of the United National Population Fund, or UNFPA.

I was posted to a remote district in the West of the country, and was the only foreigner for several hours drive. I was a little isolated as I didn’t speak much Nepali yet, and my gender was an issue. It is culturally inappropriate for unmarried women to spend much time with non-relative males, and, sadly, due to education/expectation gaps, I didn’t have enough in common with many village women to build real friendships. But I wasn’t lonely – I knew what I was getting into when I started my placement, I had done a lot of research on village culture and my potential place in it, and adjusted my expectations accordingly. In addition, I had a lovely home, with wonderful, kind landlords who loved to feed me, and very supportive coworkers. So life was pretty good! more…