How to invite international volunteers for eco/cultural "sustainable tourism" activities to India VOLUNTOURIST

Question

I have a Nature Pak at Kempty Falls near Mussoorie, Uttaranchal, India with the H.O. at Dehra Dun and also a village BHATOLI near Kempty Falls has been chosen to make into a Model Tourist Village. The project involves training of village people in refining their skills at foodcraft, dance, music, souvenir making to attract tourists to the village to get their economy going.School children also have to be brought to the Nature Park to conduct eco awareness activities for habitat building activites such as germ plasm of endangered endemic species of plants and their in-situ rehabilitation with cooperation of forest department as well as visit River Yamuna to impart awareness in aquatic life support systems under the UNEP "Save Rivers and Lakes/oceans" program in association with Zoological Suvey of India and Wild Life Institute of India. This program has been on for 7 years now but the desired results not met.

Answer 1

1. Here are some leading UK contacts for you. They maintain directories of overseas volunteering opportunities, so you should be able to persuade them to include your nature park.
a) Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO)
http://www.vso.org.uk/
b) Timebank
http://www.timebank.org.uk/index.php
c) Volunteering England
[this page has many useful links to similar worldwide bodies]
http://www.volunteering.org.uk/managingvolunteers/links.htm#international
d) Travel Tree
http://www.traveltree.co.uk/pages/Aboutus.asp?travelprogram=0

2. If you search on the internet, you can find similar organisations around the world. The Peace Corps in USA, and the United Nations, instantly spring to mind.

3. I would suggest that you need to be dynamic and proactive. If I were you, I'd be constantly thinking of further ways to publicise the project. The reason for this is that there are a whole load of volunteering opportunities around the world, but only so many potential volunteers. So you have a lot of competition, and demand for volunteers exceeds supply. After all, what organisation would not want free labour?

4. I presume you have given thought to how best you can help your volunteers - reception at airport, living accommodation, catering, health cover advice, and so on.

5. As a final thought, maybe you should organise a volunteer recruitment campaign in your region. I suspect that would be beneficial. Most UK volunteers volunteer in the UK - it's logical. People like to help, but not everyone can, or wishes to, do so thousands of miles from friends, family and culture. Emphasise the skills that volunteers will acquire - that should be a bonus for local young people.

Answer 2

In the United States, try contacting the Sierra Club. good luck.