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14 Reasons Not to Volunteer Abroad

(but reasons that may be okay for volunteer locally in your own country/community)

credits and disclaimer

Below are the most common reasons I see by people wanting to volunteer abroad, particularly on the subreddit Volunteer and also in emails to me.

And they are NOT good reasons.

In addition to listing the reasons, I note why the reasons aren't ethical nor appropriate and may even do harm.

After the first list, there's also info on what are appropriate, not harmful, reasons to volunteer abroad.

And I also note at the end why these reasons, which are NOT appropriate as priorities for volunteering abroad, are, in fact, mostly good reasons for volunteering locally, in your own community or your own country.

14 Reasons NOT to Volunteer Abroad

You want to spend a few days or weeks “doing good.”

There are zero poor communities in other countries wishing that people from rich countries would come build schools for them, or dig wells for them, or hold their orphan children, for a few days or weeks, rather than paying local people, who are desperate for employment, to do it themselves. In a few days or a few weeks, you are going to have is a cultural experience that benefits YOU - but you aren't going to change anyone's life in the community you are visiting: the Internet is filled with schools that are built by foreigners that remain empty, with no teachers, no educational materials, no proper structure for a school to operate. Or a water well that breaks soon after foreigners came and built it - but didn't train local people how to repair it. And in working with supposed "orphans" for just a few weeks (more than half of whom are NOT orphans), you are potentially harming children (they need regular, stable adults in their lives - not a never-ending stream of different adults).

Only skilled volunteers who stay at site for months (a full year is best - two even better) and dedicate time and effort to cultivating relationships and building trust actually succeed at creating something meaningful, long-term, for a local community. People who spend just a week or two "helping" very often are taking local paid job opportunities away from local people - who would very much like to build their own schools, dig their own wells, care for any child who is orphaned (and most are NOT orphans, BTW), etc. And there are NO credible, ethical nonprofits that bring in unskilled foreigners to work with wildlife. NONE. More about the harm of orphanage voluntourism (& wildlife voluntourism as well). Also see the ChildSafe guidelines for volunteers: "Working with children in institutions, such as orphanages or schools, is a job for local experts, not for unqualified volunteers who are just passing through. Children deserve more than good intentions, they need experienced, skilled and supervised caretakers and teachers who know the local culture and language."

If you aren’t ready to spend six months or a year onsite, and if you don’t have expertise that cannot be found in the area where you want to go, be a tourist instead. There is NO SHAME in being a tourist and going to an area and learning about it. transire benefaciendo: "to travel along while doing good." Being a tourist in a poor area abroad DOES REAL GOOD: paying for accommodations, local food and local guides employs local people, and gives them a sustainable form of income. Blogging about the experience and sharing photos, with links to places you stayed and contacts for guides, encourages more people to visit and spend money - money that goes DIRECTLY to local people.
You want to “find yourself” or “figure things out.”

Volunteering abroad is NOT for people who are facing an existential crisis. Volunteering abroad is not a substitute for therapy for yourself. Credible programs that are locally driven - where local people have identified the priorities and are the people you work with - do not have the time nor the capabilities nor the priority to give you meaning to your life. If you are going to volunteer there, then those local communities need you to be focused, to put your feelings aside and to get the tasks done. Expecting a volunteering abroad gig to meet your spiritual needs is, quite frankly, arrogant.

If, in the end, volunteering abroad does help you “find yourself”, great - but remember that is not the priority for volunteering abroad, that projects at credible programs are not designed with that as a priority. First comes what local people want and need, not your "vanity volunteering" needs.

Also see Volunteering to address your own mental health.
You are depressed or stressed out and need a pick me up.

Picture a scene where someone would say this:

"These are some recent college graduates from Canada. They have very little work experience, don't speak your language, and have no training in any of the things you have identified as needing most, like maternal health care, elementary school education, farm-to-market chains, etc. However, they are all chronically-depressed and they'd like to pay with your kids every day, take photos, post them to Instagram, etc. It would really cheer them up. Okay?"

No one would say, "Yes, here are my kids! Have fun!" to such a group.

Another reason this is not a good reason to volunteer abroad: you must be able to handle stressful situations if you go overseas just to travel, let alone to also volunteer. Planes get delayed. Transportation to and from an airport may fall through. Scammers try to target travelers, including aid workers, specifically. Clean bathrooms may be difficult to find. Bathrooms with flushing, Western-style toilets may be hard to find. In most countries, animals - whether dogs and cats or wildlife - are not treated as humanely as they are in, say, the USA, and you are going to see this mistreatment first hand. When you travel to a country with more poverty than what you have seen in your own country, you are going to see standards of living that may seem especially cruel to you. In many cultures, the idea of time may be treated quite differently - they may not start meetings or events at the time they have said it would. Local people may not like to make eye contact with you, or may not have seen many people of your particular height, weight, skin color or hair color and they may stare at you.

Have you had positive experiences working with others in the past? Are you comfortable with children, or elderly people, or people who may have intellectual disabilities, or people living a highly-impovershed life? Are you mature enough to stay calm with speaking with angry parents, angry neighbors and bored and/or nosy or seemingly-lazy bureaucrats? What stresses you out and how likely are you to encounter those same stressers abroad?

In short, if you are depressed or stressed out and think volunteering abroad can help your mental state, you will probably, instead, enter a situation that will make your mental state far worse.

Put on top of all that the very real commitments you make when you volunteer overseas and the much higher expectations of international volunteers: you MUST show up, you MUST do the work you have signed up for and you are expected to jump right into the work. And the priority are the clients - the people, even the animals, that are to be helped - not the foreign volunteers and their feelings. The children you are working with may have an emotional meltdown, the parents of those children may become emotional and demanding, people in the community where you are working may become distressed because of a misunderstanding and target you with their frustrations, and you are expected to know what to do in those situations to diffuse emotions.

In what shape and how stable is your own life? Have you recently had a life change such as divorce or lost your job? Have you lost someone especially close? Are you still fragile from your own experiences with neglect or abuse or harassment, and if so, how close to the surface are those feelings? Volunteering abroad isn't going to take you away from any of that. Volunteering abroad is NOT for people who are facing mental health issues. It is not for people who need to “recover” from divorce, bankruptcy, a broken heart, a death, getting fired, or any other personal or professional crisis. Again, volunteering abroad is not a substitute for therapy. Credible programs that are locally driven - where local people have identified the priorities and are the people you work with - do not have the time nor the capabilities nor the priority to address your mental health issues. Expecting a volunteering abroad gig to help you overcome a personal tragedy or mental health issue is not only arrogant, it’s dangerous. If, in the end, volunteering abroad does help you, great - but remember that is not the priority for volunteering abroad.

Here's more about volunteering to help your own mental health.
You want to be a part of response to a current, urgent disaster.

You're seeing volunteer handing out diapers or soup or something to people after a tornado or a flood or a war or other disaster and you want to be a part of it! You want to go to that place and hug those victims of disaster and be a part of the helpers!

If you really care about those people, you will NOT do that.

When you arrive at a disaster zone and announce, "Here I am! I'm ready to help", you are probably in the way more than you are helping. If you have traveled far from your home, are you expecting to find a hotel room where you can stay - thereby taking space away from desperate, homeless people who need that hotel room? Or you want a church to let you sleep in their basement - even if they want those spaces for desperate, homeless people? How will you be distinguished from people there that have the intent to harm these people - and, yes, there are people that show up just for that purpose? What training do you have in dealing with people in these kinds of crisis situations, who can lash out because of the extreme stress they are under? Do you know that certain questions or comments, however well intentioned, can further traumatize people in these crisis situations?

As noted in this resource regarding volunteering in a post-disaster or breaking-disaster situation, volunteers must be mentally and physically prepared to work 16 hour days (or more) in highly-stressful situations where their own basic needs (like going to the bathroom) must be kept to a minimum. They often have to live in austere conditions, sleeping in a tent (that they must bring themselves) or a gymnasium with dozens, even hundreds, of other people, and using a very rustic latrine. And what happens if you get to the situation and discover you cannot handle what's happening around you, such as a riot, or a medical situation, or an armed group that shows up to rob you, or an illness of your own?

Volunteers who show up, unaffiliated, untrained and not self-sufficient get in the way rather than helping, and take precious resources from those who have been devastated in a disaster situation.

If you want to help in a disaster in the future, this resource can help you get the training and experience now for volunteering in a post-disaster or breaking-disaster situation in the future. There is so, so much you can do now to get the experience and skills you need to help in a disaster situation, at home or abroad.

And if you want to help NOW, remember that cash is king - cash to charities gets disaster-affected people the temporary housing they need MOST, more than anything, including your hugs. Also, there might already be refugees from that disaster you are watching right in your own geographic area - local nonprofits will help you connect to local volunteering opportunities to help them.
You are bored & want an adventure.

Picture the scene:

"Hey, there are some people here from the USA, and they are really bored, so they thought coming to your village and doing work that you would really prefer to do yourself, and be paid for, like building a school or a well, or caring for children who have lost their families to HIV or natural disasters or civil war, would be fun."

For all the reasons that have already been stated, this is a really bad reason to want to volunteer abroad. It is an insult to communities in need of outside expertise.

In addition, when you travel to another country, you need to be prepared to be bored for long periods of time. You need to be prepared for long, boring bus rides, and long, boring waits at the bus stop with no phone connection, and boring, even lonely evenings in your room with no Internet access and no other volunteers available to hang out with you. You think you're bored now? Just wait until you volunteer or work abroad in a humanitarian situation!
You have failed previously & are looking for success.

I'm sorry you didn't do well in school, I'm sorry that all of your jobs have ended poorly. But volunteering abroad is not for people who are looking for success when they haven't been able to find it elsewhere. People in developing countries need people who have successfully done things in their own community, successfully, and that could do the same internationally, in a different community.

Local volunteering would be much more appropriate for you, especially a program that would teach you a skill for your volunteering service, or a gig where you assist an experienced volunteer.
You think it will help you get into a “great” university.

There are zero poor communities anywhere in the world saying, “Gosh, I wish some inexperienced university student who has never lived in a low infrastructure environment, doesn’t speak our local language and have never done in their own communities what they want to do abroad would come here and “help” us - and I hope the experience helps them get into Yale!"

The world does NOT need more "vanity volunteering" projects.
You want to jazz up your Instagram or other social media profile.

This is one of the worst reasons ever to volunteer. People living in poverty are not your props. Neither are at-risk children anywhere.

Can you post photos to your social media from an experience abroad! Sure, as long as you have people's permission, including all of the parents of the children you want to photograph.

Again, the world does NOT need more "vanity volunteering" projects.
You think it will look great on your résumé.

Sure, it might look interesting to potential employers to see that you worked abroad. They might even ask you about it in an interview. However, the best volunteers are those committed to sustainable development and have a real, needed expertise to offer local people, not those concerned most, primarily, about career development. Again, the world does NOT need more "vanity volunteering" projects.
You never lived abroad during university.

Then go live abroad. Spend money and soak up all the local culture you want. Hire local guides. Eat in local restaurants. Stay with families. Blog about it. Take lots of photos. It's already been noted how much being a tourist abroad can help local people far more than volunteering for a few weeks in those communities. But the priority in credible volunteering abroad is what local people actually need, and they need someone that will take the assignment with the utmost seriousness and that will always put the needs of the community to be served FIRST, that will always make those needs a priority.
You want to learn another language, for free.

Credible volunteering programs send volunteers who already can work in a local language. They require candidates to pass a test to prove it, and often conduct part of the interview in that language, just to be sure. You would be better off taking an immersion class or traveling long-term in a country that speaks the language you want to learn.

If you want to go abroad to learn a language, pay to go to a language school that's abroad.
You want to travel for free.

The purpose of credible volunteer placement organizations is not for people to travel for free. That is not why credible programs exist. Credible volunteering programs are those that are focused primarily on communities to be served, and some of these - UNV, CUSO, VSO and Peace Corps - often do pay for all of the volunteers' expenses: flights, in-country travel, accommodations, work visas, and a stipend to pay for food, local taxis, etc. But providing free travel is NOT why these programs exist.

Might free travel to another country benefit the volunteer? Absolutely! There's no denying that being paid, to having your expenses covered while volunteering abroad, benefits you, the volunteer. And many volunteers use the opportunity of living and working abroad to travel well beyond their service area, even to other nearby countries - travel that is NOT paid for by anyone but volunteers themselves, BTW.
You want to change the world.

You aren’t going to change the world in two weeks abroad. You aren’t in a month abroad. You probably aren’t going to change even one life in two weeks abroad - unless you do something harmful.

Having a a real, meaningful, sustainable impact on just one local community takes a lot of time. If you don't understand that, if you don't respect that, don't try to volunteer abroad.

It’s a colonialist perspective, a supremacist perspective, to think that you, because you are from a privileged country, a country that has benefited from the stolen wealth of other countries, know what’s best for a poor community, that you can solve problems they have struggled with for decades, even centuries - problems that, often, have their roots in the exploitation of YOUR country.

Your partnership will be welcomed. Your support for locally-driven projects will be welcomed. Your work abroad - for many months, even years, not for just a week or two - can make a sustainable difference. Your respectful collaboration with many others could, indeed, change the world.

And this resource is directed at parents of children, but if you think you are capable of changing the world by volunteering abroad, you also need to read Teaching Children Compassion & Understanding Instead of Pity With Regard To Poverty.
You Believe A Change in Attitude or Work Ethics Elsewhere Is What's Needed.

Are you looking to be a heroine or hero, charging in on a silvery steed to save people? Then please don't vounteer abroad.

Do you understand that it is not your role to teach villagers a lesson in how to be better parents or better people, and that it's not your role to straighten out "the system?"

If you think people are poor because of how they think, or that they are lazy, or that they don't know how to work hard, or because of their religion, please don't volunteer abroad. People are not poor because they aren't willing to work, or they aren't willing to work harder. They aren't poor because they haven't converted to your religion. They live in poverty because of a myriad of historical and systemic reasons that cannot be solved by a volunteer from abroad. When communities are transformed from chronic poverty to basic economic and societal stability - and, yes, this DOES happen - it's because of a systemic, long-term approach by MANY people, one that involves local people themselves, employs local people themselves, in every step of the process.

Again, it’s a colonialist perspective, a supremacist perspective, to think that you, because you are from a privileged country, a country that has benefited from the stolen wealth of other countries, know what’s best for a poor community, that you can solve problems they have struggled with for decades, even centuries - problems that, often, have their roots in the exploitation of YOUR country. It is the VERY WORST of "vanity volunteering."

And, again, this resource is directed at parents of children, but if you think you are capable of changing the world by volunteering abroad, you also need to read Teaching Children Compassion & Understanding Instead of Pity With Regard To Poverty.

If you want to delve into why the aforementioned reasons are bad reasons to volunteer abroad, even harmful reasons to volunteer abroad, see:

An added issue around the ethics of people wanting to go "volunteer" for a few weeks abroad is a growing interest by people in developing countries (in Africa, South America and parts of Asia) to do what they see people - mostly white people from privileged countries do: go to other countries and volunteer and post fabulous, exciting photos to Instagram. Why shouldn't someone from Egypt not have the same international volunteering and travel opportunities as an unskilled but plucky person from Canada? If an unskilled foreign volunteer can go to Kenya and build a school in a high poverty area, or cradle orphan babies, or interact with wildlife, why can't someone with little or no expertise from Kenya go to the USA and build a school in a high poverty area, or cradle orphan babies, or interact with wildlife?

Do note, however, that credible organizations like the United Nations Volunteers programme actively recruits highly skilled people who live in in developing countries (in Africa, South America and parts of Asia) to be UN Volunteers - there are far more UNVs from developing countries than from privileged countries.

Really, all of these are bad reasons to volunteer abroad?

Of course the reasons you want to volunteer abroad can include that you want to better understand cultures different than your own, or you want more experience working in a particular language (that you can ALREADY work in), or that you want to work for international development agencies and this could be a nice entry into learning more, or that you are excited about the opportunity to really challenge yourself in an international context. As long as you are coming from a place of respect for local people and seeing them as the drivers of what you are going to do, not the helpless recipients of your charity, you can and should enjoy those benefits from volunteering abroad.

And if, in your ethical, respectful, appropriate volunteering abroad, more people do start reading your blog or watching your YouTube channel, that's fine - as long as you are respecting local cultures, not posting images of children without parents' permission, aren't perpetuating racist stereotypes, etc.

And if volunteering with UN Volunteers, CUSO, VSO, Peace Corps or a similar, credible, long-term placement agency allows you to travel to a country you have always wanted to see, without your having to pay for travel and accommodations yourself, wonderful!

Again, you partnership will be welcomed in other countries. Your support for locally-driven projects will be welcomed. Your work abroad - for many months, even years, not for just a week or two - can make a sustainable difference. Your respectful collaboration with many others could, indeed, change the world.

So, what are the good reasons for volunteering abroad?

Really, there's one primary reason to volunteer abroad: because you have an area of deep expertise you really do think could help abroad, an expertise you have gained in your own community or elsewhere in your own country, an expertise that is coupled with curiosity, an intense interest in another country, and a desire to collaborate with others.

Is it okay to have a sense of adventure that you think such an experience might satisfy? Sure! As long as you have expertise that's actually needed, you are ready to make a commitment longer than a a few weeks, and you always remember: the priority is what local people want and need, in local people being in control of the process, and local skills being built.

Even Respectful Voluntourism Abroad, where you pay for a "volunteering" experience in another country for just a few weeks, requires some expertise (as opposed to non-respectful, not credible voluntourism that is just about the voluntourism organization making money).

So, volunteering abroad is only for the privileged?

No.

First, let me say it again: credible organizations like the United Nations Volunteers programme actively recruit highly skilled people who live in in developing countries (in Africa, South America and parts of Asia) to be UN Volunteers - there are far more UNVs from developing countries than from privileged countries.

Secondly: if you have skills and experience needed abroad, you are a great candidate for credible, long-term volunteering programs, regardless of where you went to university or what country you are from. If you have expertise that's needed, you can volunteer abroad in an ethical, community-focused program. Your options for such volunteering abroad are here, along with advice on how you can get the needed experience through work and volunteering in your own community.

Voluntourism - where people pay lots of money to go abroad for just a few weeks - is, indeed, for just the privileged who can afford to pay the fees to go. Traveling abroad is also only for the privileged who can afford to pay for all their travel, accommodations, visas, etc. - and who have a passport another country would find acceptable (not everyone has such a passport).

Why are you doing this?! Why are you saying this?!

Why am I doing this? Because I'm tired of seeing volunteering, locally or abroad, that's more focused on volunteers and their feelings and personal needs and ambitions than on the people and communities to be served. Because I'm tired of seeing local people excluded from decision-making and participation that is supposed to positively affect their lives. Because I'm tired of seeing the remnants of white colonialism and supremacy present in volunteering and other nonprofit/NGO activities. Because I really do want volunteers to help, not hurt.

Did you say earlier these might be good reasons for volunteering locally?!

I did say that. I did indeed. And below, I'm going to list the reasons that, while back for volunteering abroad, are good for volunteering locally, and why:

You want to spend a few days or weeks “doing good.”

Great! There are probably at least a few local nonprofits and community groups in your area that would love for you to come for a one-day episodic or micro volunteering event. There are local groups that create such short-term opportunities specifically for people that want to spend just a few hours, or a day, or a few days, "doing good," with no further commitment, like Habitat for Humanity, or tree-planting nonprofits, or trash-pickup groups like SOLVE. When you participate in these kinds of short-term local activities, you aren't taking paid work away from local people, you are learning about your own community, and you are doing activities that that have been created especially for volunteers. Here's how you find volunteering activities - and here's info about group volunteering efforts specifically.

You want to “find yourself” or “figure things out.”

While volunteering abroad is NOT for people who are facing an existential crisis, local volunteering might be a good avenue for you. If you volunteer locally and find that you aren't finding yourself, that you aren't figuring things out, you can just go home. If you have a series of bad days, you can go spend times with friends or family or by yourself in a favorite coffee shop, the library, etc. You can easily quit and go try to find something else - just don't string the nonprofit along, don't ghost them, etc. Even locally, nonprofits need you, the volunteer, to be focused, to put your feelings aside and to get the tasks done. Don't expect nor demand that any volunteering meet your spiritual needs - but welcome it if it happens. Just like with volunteering abroad, first comes what local people want and need, not your "vanity volunteering" needs.

Volunteering of any kind is not a substitute for therapy for yourself, but local volunteering might help your emotional health - and it might not.
You are depressed and need a pick me up.

Volunteering of any kind is not a substitute for therapy for yourself, but local volunteering might help your mental health - and it might not. While volunteering abroad is NOT for people who are facing mental health issues, for the reasons clearly stated earlier, local volunteering, with its lower risks and options for far, far lower stress circumstances, could help contribute to your better mental health. Again, volunteering of any kind, abroad or local, is not a substitute for therapy, and expecting a volunteering gig to help you overcome a personal tragedy or mental health issue is not only arrogant, it can be dangerous. If, in the end, volunteering does help you, great. Again, here's more about volunteering to help your own mental health. As stated earlier, even locally, nonprofits need you, the volunteer, to be focused, to put your feelings aside and to get the tasks done. Just like with volunteering abroad, first comes what local people want and need, not your "vanity volunteering" needs.
You want to be a part of response to a current, urgent disaster.

This is not a bad reason to volunteer, in general. Remember that cash is king - cash to charities gets disaster-affected people the temporary housing they need MOST, more than anything, including your hugs. Also, as noted earlier, there might already be refugees from that disaster you are watching right in your own geographic area - local nonprofits will help you connect to local volunteering opportunities to help them.

Again, as noted earlier, this resource regarding volunteering in a post-disaster or breaking-disaster situation, there is local training and volunteering you can do right now that will put you into a position to volunteer farther from home during a disaster.
You are bored.

It's a bad reason to volunteer abroad, for reasons already stated, but being bored is not a bad motivation for local volunteering, so long as you can stay focused on the volunteering role and you get the task done to the specifications and needs of the nonprofit or community group. Remember: this organization is counting on you. If you find that you are still bored despite volunteering, then finish your initial commitment and tell the nonprofit you will be ending your service once you finish that commitment (you will finish the weekend shift you signed up for, you will note how many minutes of a video you transcribed, etc.). Don't ghost the nonprofit (don't just stop showing up).
You have failed previously & are looking for success.

While this is a bad reason to volunteer abroad, local volunteering might be just what you need, especially a program that would teach you a skill, or give you a project you can do and then feel good about. Maybe you aspire to a leadership position, but you've never lead a team: volunteering locally can be a great avenue for learning to work and support other volunteers and to, eventually, lead a team. A lot of nonprofits are willing to take a chance on a volunteer as a leader when a for-profit organization wouldn't with a paid employee. Maybe you've been fired, and you need a "win" that would make you feel better, and volunteering on a project might give you that feeling. Just be prepared to try out several volunteering activities before you find the right one for you. Here's how to find volunteering opportunities.
You think it will help you get into a “great” university.

I have to admit that I would be turned off if, when screening volunteer applicants, I saw this as a reason on the volunteer application that someone wanted to volunteer. That said, it's absolutely true that a leadership volunteering opportunity, or a highly collaborative volunteering opportunity, right in your own community, can look fantastic on a university application (or a job application, for that matter). But note: the world does NOT need more "vanity volunteering" projects.
You want to jazz up your Instagram or other social media profile.

This is an exception to my list: it's a lousy reason to volunteer, locally or abroad. Again, the world does NOT need more "vanity volunteering" projects. That said, if you want to use your social media profile to promote causes you believe in - you want more people to spay or neuter their pets, more people to help register others to vote, people to understand the consequences of domestic violence, etc. - and you want to volunteer to help educate yourself better and to improve your messaging, great! Just check with the nonprofit or community group about their policies for taking and sharing photos during your volunteering service, especially if other volunteers, employees or clients would be in the photos.
You think it will look great on your résumé.

Similar to my comments about using volunteering to get into a good university, I have to admit that I would be turned off if, when screening volunteer applicants, I saw this as a reason on the volunteer application that someone wanted to volunteer. But here's what I would NOT be turned off to see:
- I want to volunteer for this role because I have a degree in graphic design but I need more work experience and samples of my work for my portfolio.
- I want to volunteer abroad, but I lack much experience working with multi-cultural audiences, or people that are different than me and my culture. I think this volunteering could help me in that regard.
- I moved to this community recently. I think all people see on my résumé is that I'm not from here. I think this volunteering could help me be seen as more local and help me in my job search.
But note, again: the world does NOT need more "vanity volunteering" projects.
You never lived abroad during university - or you really want to work abroad someday.

Volunteering locally is a great way to acquire the skills and experience that will make you a great candidate for working or volunteering abroad someday. Here's more about how volunteering locally can help you to someday volunteer abroad.
You want to learn another language, for free.

If an organization says volunteers need to be able to speak Spanish, then it means you must be able to WORK in Spanish, on day ONE. It means you need to be able to do some or all of your volunteer interview in Spanish. Or whatever language is called for. Volunteering locally can help build your language skills, but please respect language requirements for roles, when stated. If you want to use volunteering as a way to improve your skills in another language, then look for opportunities for informal conversations for language learners - your local library can probably help.
You want to travel for free.

This doesn't apply for local volunteering, since you are staying in your own community. If you want to volunteer in another part of your own country, you will very likely still have to pay all travel and accommodation expenses.
You want to change the world.

You aren’t going to change the world in two weeks of volunteering, abroad or locally. You aren’t in a month abroad or locally. Having a real, meaningful, sustainable impact on just one local community takes a lot of time.

This concept is called white saviorism. It’s a colonialist perspective, a supremicist perspective, to think that you, because you are from a privileged country or class, a country or class that has benefited from the stolen wealth of other countries or classes, know what’s best for a poor community, that you can solve problems they have struggled with for decades, even centuries - problems that, often, have their roots in the exploitation of YOUR country or class.

Your equal partnership in volunteering will be welcomed. Your support for locally-driven projects will be welcomed. Your openness to listening and learning will be welcomed. Your respectful, repeated collaboration with many others could, indeed, change the world.
You believe a change in attitude or work ethics elsewhere is what's needed.

If you think people are poor because of how they think, or that they are lazy, or that they don't know how to work hard, please don't volunteer abroad. People are not poor because they aren't willing to work, or they aren't willing to work harder. They aren't poor because they haven't converted to your religion. They live in poverty because of a myriad of historical and systemic reasons that cannot be solved by a volunteer from abroad. When communities are transformed from chronic poverty to basic economic and societal stability - and, yes, this DOES happen - it's because of a systemic, long-term approach by MANY people, one that involves local people themselves, employs local people themselves, in every step of the process.

Again: this concept is called white saviorism. It’s a colonialist perspective, a supremicist perspective. It comes from a place of arrogance, that your culture, your religion, your ethics, are "better" than those you are trying to help. It is the VERY WORST of "vanity volunteering."

Here's how you find volunteering activities.

If you disagree with what I've written, by all means, write your own blog or web page, and then contact me and let me know the link. I'd like to read your thoughts.

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