Is there grant money available to young people who want to do international humanitarian work?

Question

I did Amigos de las Americas two summers ago and paid for it myself. It all added up to 5,000ish dollars after imunizations, supplys and other things. I want to do International Service Corps this comming summer in Thailand, where I will teach HIV and AIDS prevention. It will be at least 6,500 dollars to do so. I'm also paying out of pocket to go to school each semester. I need to find money to do this. Anyone know any sources.

Answer 1

No, there is no grant money for this. You will need to raise the money yourself, through working, through gifts from family and friends, and even through loans. The book "How To Live Your Dream of Volunteering Overseas" can help. Also, look through the previously answered questions on YahooAnswers -- this is a frequently-asked (and answered) question.

If you want to make the jump from paying to help overseas to *being paid* to help overseas, then you need to do several things: get a degree, become fluent in another language, have an area of expertise that you can train others in, experience in training people in underserved communities (immigrants, non-native English speakers, older people, people entering the workforce, etc.) or expertise that is desperately needed in a community (sanitation, medical training, procurement, working with people with HIV/AIDS, etc.). To learn about the many different jobs that people work in to help people in the developing world, visit ReliefWeb and click on "vacancies" -- this will give you an idea of the kind of career to pursue. Once you have a degree, more experience, etc., you can look into joining the PeaceCorps and/or UN Volunteers, which do not charge participants (however, both are EXTREMELY competitive -- and the average age of UNVs is 38, to give you an idea of how experienced they are).

Answer 2

I don't know... but I want to do alot of the same work, let me know if you find anything!

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