Healthcare

The state of a country's health care is generally a good measuring point for the state of welfare in the country, and more than likely, the projects you visit will be below what you are used to.

The type of healthcare work provided by volunteers varies - you may find yourself teaching hygienic or sexual education classes, or working in the field with people with real conditions who are not able to find help in a hospital or clinic.

Healthcare projects can be some of the most emotional for volunteers, as work in AIDS clinics are often some of the more underfunded and over-worked.  The condition of patients in some of these clinics can be very sad, and to be truthful, beyond saving. Your job as a volunteer may include bringing whatever ease and comfort to these peoples lives and the medical community works to get more help and supplies to the area.

Working in healthcare abroad provides volunteers not only with a valuable training opportunity for those interested in pursuing healthcare as a career, but also an incredible lesson for anyone in resourcefulness.  While many of the medical centers volunteers work at are drastically underfunded, every center has the same goal: to make people healthy.

As long as there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and an objective that needs to be reached, people always somehow tap into their innate sense of innovations and get the job done - necessity is the mother of invention!

Healthcare projects are the essence of volunteering abroad.  These projects bring volunteers to the base of a society's welfare.  These projects are not about saving animals, or building schools or orphanages. This is about bringing yourself way out of your comfort zone, to a group of people you've never met and saying, "there are people who care, and we're here to help you feel better."