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Many retirees seem to be bored and wondering what to do with their life after retirement. After retirement is a good time to do long-term volunteering somewhere in Africa or Asia. There are many benefits and there are drawbacks.
My dh is a retired headmaster and volunteered with VSO-UK (bigger than the Peace Corps). We went together as a couple to Uganda for 2 years. I am so very glad we went! We have made lifelong friends. Yes, there were many inconveniences but overall the benefits definitely outweighed them.
Reasons retirement is a good time to go - you are more mature, you have the time, you have wisdom, you can rent out your house while you are gone, your retirement income can supplement your volunteers allowance and the rest can sit in the bank, you can do something good to help those less fortunate, you have an adventure, you get to experience a culture totally different from yours, you learn a simple lifestyle, you learn to appreciate how spoiled you are.
Americans can volunteer with VSO-Canada. For many reasons I don't recommend the Peace Corps. I will expand if anyone wants to know. I have an extensive blog (in my profile) and photos of our 2 years in Uganda if anyone wants to know what it was like.
VSO is a huge NGO around the world. You must be a professional in order to be accepted - education, health care worker, HIV-AIDS, disabilities, etc.
Hmmmm.....no one interested? Too scary for you? Not adventurous enough? It is a lot of trouble to prepare to go but worth it.
If it sounded like I'm recruiting for VSO, I'm not. There are other organisations you can volunteer for as well. We found the people who were happiest in their volunteer placements and didn't leave early were retirees, like us.
While we were gone my dh's occupational pension just kept piling up in the bank because our renters paid the mortgage. We only had to pay homeowners insurance and a few other expenses. So we had a nice sum in the bank when we came home.
There are many organizations for the kind of volunteering that the OP suggests. You can google "volunteer vacations" or anything along those lines.
The one concern I'd have is the access to medical care in tough places.
Some volunteer "vacations" have brief periods of volunteering (like a vacation-type period of time for working people) and then different extended times available.
I think it's a great idea. If you don't have beloved pets, at least.
There are many organizations for the kind of volunteering that the OP suggests. You can google "volunteer vacations" or anything along those lines.
The one concern I'd have is the access to medical care in tough places.
Some volunteer "vacations" have brief periods of volunteering (like a vacation-type period of time for working people) and then different extended times available.
I think it's a great idea. If you don't have beloved pets, at least.
Ours was not a volunteer vacation--it was 2 years. Short term volunteering isn't really the same experience, you never get a chance to get used to a culture. Medical care can be a concern if you are rural. All medical care is covered by long term organisations - it's just the proximity to a good hospital.
We were lucky because we had a friend who was a doctor in the nearby town, although we only needed him once and it wasn't serious.
We also did not experience any crime whatsoever.
I guess a pet would have be left with a family member.
To the OP: You said you would give your reasons for not recommending the Peace Corps, if someone wanted to hear them. I would be interested.
I met quite a lot of PC volunteers and those who opted for VSO Canada instead while in Uganda. I was amazed at how it was run.
In the PC you must earn vacation time just like a job, which would be fine except that many people are in education and when schools have term breaks up to 2 months long the volunteer is supposed to just stay home and not travel. If a vol lives in a rural area they have nothing to do during these times. The PC has spied on vols by reading their blogs and discovering that they have been travelling during breaks. They can be sent straight home is caught a second time.
VSO treats their vols like adults. Time off is between the vol and the employer, not VSO. You inform VSO when you leave the country on a trip.
PC vols are not allowed to buy cars or ride on motorbike taxis. If caught they are sent straight home. Many vols are in rural areas where the only form of transport is a motorbike taxi. PC doesn't seem to know anything about the conditions they send their vols to live in.
We owned a car. VSO tells us the dangers of riding motorbike taxis but as adults it's up to us whether we take them.
A PC vol can choose what continent they want to work in. They can't choose the country or the job. A friend of ours was given a teaching job although she had no teaching credentials.
VSO offers you placements which you can accept or reject.
The PC seems to think their vols are like students on a long field trip. If a vol wants to volunteer to help further their career, the PC is not the place to do it.
Most PC vols are recent college graduates with no experience in their field. VSO vols must have 5 years experience in their field.
PC vols seem to spend an inordinate amount of time filling out work reports and going to pointless meetings. VSO treats vols like adults. About 3 times a year a VSO rep meets with your employer to see how you are doing, and asks you to report on your employer.
PC vols take an oath to uphold the US constitution. Why? What has that got to do with being in Africa or Asia?? PC objective is to show other countries that their values are the best and should change to be like the US.
Volunteer vacations are simply vacations. Volunteering for less than a year is not IMO, true volunteering.
Most people are not cut out for long term volunteering. But for those who are adventurous and want an experience they'll never forget, it's fantastic. When my hub first mentioned the idea to me I told him he was insane! Then I thought about it. And thought about it. After our day long interviews I was anxious we'd be accepted (more than half aren't). I was thrilled to be accepted!
Thank you for taking the trouble to talk about the Peace Corps. I didn't know most of that and found it interesting. As for your statement that "Volunteering for less than a year is not IMO, true volunteering.", I found it snobbish. "True" volunteering is giving one's time without any agenda of personal advancement. If someone helps out in the library of a local school for one hour, that is no less genuine or "true" than volunteering somewhere for 20 years. Obviously, the amount of virtue that attaches to it is not the same, but don't you think that any arbitrary time limit definition is rather absurd? Retirement is a wonderful time to seek meaningful activity through volunteer work, which can take so many different forms.
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