Many young adults are opting to take a gap year or volunteer abroad vacation for a period of time. With these vacations the children stay for a minimum of one week to three years depending on how they have planed their trip. As a result many parents these days are faced with the dilemma of letting their kids to travel alone. The parents have done a great job teaching their children to be independent and responsible. The real test comes when the children ask for their independence by asking their parents their desire to volunteer abroad. Most parents are uncomfortable with this request as there are too many concerns to address. One of the concerns is that their child might not be mature enough to live in a country by themselves for a long period of time. Another problem is that most of the parents have not travelled to other countries and they don’t know how to give advice on travelling abroad. Many parents aren’t sure that their children can travel abroad without them. They are also worried about health issues; their kids could get homesickness; and security issues. Many first time travelers have a problem convincing their parents to let them volunteer abroad.  As the volunteers they should inform their parents of the benefits that come from volunteering abroad, and most parents are glad to have let their kids volunteer abroad. As a parent who has a child who wants to volunteer abroad, you can help by:

There are many opportunities that are available for those who want to volunteer abroad. When you type volunteer abroad on Google you are get around 481,000 results and on yahoo it’s about 21,600,000. There are about 270 organizations or more which provide volunteer abroad programs.  These organizations offer a variety of programs in different countries. The reason for this is because the volunteer service industry is new and is rapidly growing fast. In the last ten years there has been increase on the number of organizations that provide volunteer abroad services. Many of are made up of past volunteers and who want to make volunteering easier for the next volunteers. All these organizations are market themselves well, they have really good websites, pamphlets and recruitment drives. When you are looking for the right organization to use takes too much time and energy.  You are normally overwhelmed with all the information that is out there, making your decision to be difficult. When choosing which volunteer service organizations that you are going to use consider the following: