Every year natural disasters affect the lives or people. It often takes months if not years for a community to recover. The need for volunteer work in these areas is important. This is where volunteer travel comes in handy. This form of travel help is used to allow people to travel to different parts of the world where they can help out with rebuilding the community.
A key part of volunteer travel is that it is often made to work with a discounted or free accommodation rate. In many cases a volunteer organization can take in the cost of lodging for people who travel to an area for help. The people who do come out will stay rent free for a period of time and will be responsible for helping out with recovery efforts in a particular area. This is often made to assist an area and to keep a spot recovered well.
How does it work? First, a person will apply for a volunteer travel opportunity through the given organization. The person may have to pay a small fee for certain things or at least have a certain amount of materials ready at hand for working in a spot before being approved. The person can then travel out to the area. He or she will stay in a lodging area that has been designated by the company that set up the travel point. In some cases a commitment may be required for a certain amount of time. This timing will vary by each travel organization. The person who stays in the area will then be able to spend the travel time working as a volunteer on various recovery projects in that area.
Volunteers, often young people, come in for a period of time to work with a variety of projects dedicated to rebuilding areas and clearing out problems that were caused by disasters. This can be used in a number of different ways. Here are a few examples of projects where volunteers have played an important role.
Many volunteer programs have been set up since the 2010 earthquake in Haiti to help rebuild an already poor country that has struggled since then. Many volunteer travel services involve people heading over to Haiti to work with cleanup, recovery and reconstruction of buildings all around the area.
Some volunteer travel services were set up in the summer of 2010 following the massive oil spill that plagued much of the American Gulf Coast. These travel services involved people staying in smaller hotels booked for them and then being sent out to spots to help with cleaning up areas, rehabilitating animals and restoring structures that were destroyed in the spill.
Some volunteers have even gotten into some of the rural parts of China to help out with earthquake recovery in those areas. They have worked with a variety of recovery efforts in the area. However, these are often cases where the accommodation is set up by a volunteer travel group with several temporary spots for resting. This is often due to the fact that there may not be any spaces left for accommodation or other civilized spots in a disaster recovery area that is too far out of a populated region.