Archive: April 2015

Writer Morgan Quinn looks at volunteer vacations for U.S. News & World Report and considers the career and résumé they may hold.

6 Vacations That Will Boost Your Résumé

These trips will give your earning potential a lift.

By Morgan Quinn

April 30, 2015

No matter how many corners you cut and airfare deals you score, taking a vacation is expensive. What’s more, many Americans avoid taking time off altogether because they’re worried how it will affect their careers. A 2014 Glassdoor survey found that U.S. employees only use only half of their eligible paid vacation and paid time off. A U.S. Travel Association study last year also found that nearly half of employees continue to check their work email when they do go on vacation.

What if you could take a vacation that would help your career – not hurt it? What if your time off added valuable skills to your résumé and even put you in line for a promotion when you returned?

A growing trend among American workers and recent college graduates is the volunteer vacation, where travelers work their way through various cities around the world, adding skills, learning new languages and boosting their earning potential. If you want to take some time off to travel this summer – while still working on your career – try one of these vacation ideas.

1. Learn a language. Taking language classes in another country gives you the opportunity to immerse yourself in local culture and hone your linguistic skills, both inside and outside the classroom. Classes and prices vary, but there are numerous programs that help foreigners study languages around the world, including French in Quebec City, Spanish in South America or Japanese in Tokyo. Whether you are learning a language from scratch or just brushing up on your skills, you’ll return home with a new section to add to your résumé and some real-world experience.

2. Volunteer on an organic farm. Do you want to get your hands dirty this summer? The World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms organization links volunteers with organic farms for a unique work experience. In return for volunteering, WWOOF hosts offer food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles and farming. WWOOF farms exist across the globe, from Argentina to Thailand.

The length of stay is negotiated between the host and volunteer, with visits as short as several days to as long as half a year. This is a truly one-of-a-kind experience for people looking to add organic farming and sustainable agriculture experience to their résumé.

3. Practice a trade. If you’re handy with a hammer or looking to get construction and contracting experience, there are a variety of opportunities to lend a hand to an organization in need of volunteers. For instance, Habitat for Humanity offers an international program that organizes volunteers to build well-constructed, affordable shelters for people living in poverty. Another organization, HistoriCorps, works with volunteers to restore historic sites on public lands throughout the United States.

4. Teach overseas. No matter what industry you work in, teaching is an impressive addition to your résumé. Plus, the huge availability of teaching positions across the globe means you can find a tenure that works for you. You can also choose whether you’d prefer to work with children, teenagers or adults.

There are overseas teaching programs like The English Camp Company, which organizes summer camps in Taiwan, Italy and Austria for kids ages 6 to 14. Volunteers have the opportunity to tutor campers in English, live with families and experience authentic local culture firsthand.

5. Conduct scientific field research. If you’re a science enthusiast or interested in exploring ways to make our planet more sustainable, this type of vacation is for you.

Earthwatch Institute expeditions send volunteers to do field work side-by-side with leading scientists. Volunteers work directly under the supervision of experts and get the opportunity to collect data and work as a full-fledged expedition member. Not only will you add an impressive and memorable experience to your résumé, you’ll help the world’s top scientists conduct research that makes our planet a better place to live.  

6. Work with animals. If you already have experience working with animals or are simply an animal lover, consider taking a vacation to volunteer at a facility that helps injured or abandoned animals. You can spend a few days or a few weeks giving hands-on care to furry friends who need your help.

For example, the Earthwatch Institute offers a weeklong trip where volunteers monitor threats to ocelots in Trinidad. The Pacific Whale Foundation sponsors a free program, Volunteering on Vacation, for Maui visitors who want to help protect the island’s rare and endangered species.

Just a word of caution: All these vacations may be in historic, beautiful or exotic locations, but they are definitely not a day at the beach – so be prepared to get down and dirty.

U.S. News & World Report

Marilyn Jones, correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, examines a former police officer’s unique understanding and approach to homeless individuals in his Northern California community.

Robert Anderson sees homeless people as individuals, not problems

Because of the efforts of the former police officer, many people he came to know on the streets now have stable housing "  in a place and in a program he helped create.

By Marilyn Jones, Correspondent

April 17, 2015

After retiring recently from a 32-year career on the San Mateo, Calif., police force, Robert Anderson could be taking life easy, enjoying soft breezes on a tropical beach. But after decades working to find homes for chronically homeless people, he couldn' t just walk into the sunset.

Because of his efforts, many of the people he came to know on the streets have moved into stable housing in a place and in a program Mr. Anderson helped to create.

Robert Anderson (c.) stands outside The Vendome, a shelter in San Mateo, Calif., with manager Steve Carey (l.) and Richard Gilmour, a once-homeless man helped by Mr. Anderson. (Courtesy of Robert Anderson) San Mateo, Calif.

When he was a 19-year-old political science major at San Jose State University Anderson, who had grown up in nearby San Francisco, interned as a police cadet in the San Mateo Police Department. Coming from a middle-class background, he wanted to gain some street savvy, and he found the police work fascinating. Seeing people at their worst awakened in him a desire to try to make a difference. After he graduated from college, he entered the police academy and became an officer at age 21.

Almost immediately, he started dealing with homeless people and their many problems. He describes those days as feeling like being in the movie "Groundhog Day" " every day the same calls, the same complaints from property owners and merchants, the same hassles that the homeless had caused people who came downtown.

Since homelessness is not a crime, he was limited in what he could do. One woman, for example, adamantly refused to go to a shelter and lived for years on the same downtown corner. A juniper bush on the corner actually grew around where she camped out, nearly enveloping her.

But sleeping in doorways, urinating on private property, and public drunkenness are crimes. When Anderson arrived on the scene, the same scenarios took place: The homeless were arrested, followed by periods of incarceration and a constant drifting in and out of jail or prison. Anderson also felt stymied in his efforts to curb substance abuse, chronic alcoholism, and episodes of mental illness, which often meant his calling an ambulance to take a homeless person to the emergency room.

More and more he felt frustrated.

"On the street, I had to be reactive," he says. "People would say, " Can' t you do something?' I developed relationships with the homeless, but my toolbox was limited." Most often his only contacts with the homeless occurred as the result of complaints.

He began trying to learn who these homeless people were and how they had wound up in their situation. "These are real people," he says. "Each with their own stories and different journeys that brought them to living on the streets."

A colleague of Anderson, Barbara Walt, a local business manager and treasurer of the downtown business association, recalls contacting him repeatedly to do something about the homeless people on her business property. She would arrive at work in the mornings to find them asleep by the front door. Bottles lay strewn around, and the area had been used as a public restroom.

"But Robert treated these people with respect," she says. "He would always be a gentleman, was always kind to them. He cared about them, and he would look for a safe place for them to go."

By 2006, Anderson knew the homeless situation wasn' t going to be solved through citations, temporary incarcerations, and trips to the hospital. So, along with San Mateo Police Chief Susan Manheimer and Byron Hudson, a case manager and social worker, he decided to try a new approach.

Typically, homeless shelters require that residents already be off drugs and alcohol, having completed a treatment program. Anderson and his colleagues worked to establish what they called the Homeless Outreach Team. They based their approach on the philosophy that housing is a basic human right, even for those still abusing alcohol and drugs. HOT joined forces with the city, especially the police department, and the Downtown San Mateo Association, as well as nonprofits such as the Shelter Network of San Mateo County.

"At the time, there were 28 full-time homeless people living in downtown San Mateo," says Nancy Bush, a senior vice president at United American Bank and Anderson' s colleague at the downtown association, which was receiving hundreds of complaints every year.

HOT members, especially Anderson, worked with each homeless person to get him or her into stable housing, Ms. Bush recalls.

In 2007, the city purchased The Vendome, a run-down 19th-century hotel. The city restored it, creating 18 rooms for residents and a communal kitchen.

"Robert' s compassion and sensitivity, as well as his ability to " meet people where they are,' made him extremely successful at getting the homeless off the streets," Bush says. "He was able to identify each individual' s specific needs and worked diplomatically to address their issues."

After the first residents moved into The Vendome, HOT conducted a study to track the results of the pilot project. The study found that once participants got settled in their new home and began receiving support services, the cost of their medical care and criminal-justice interventions was reduced by 85 percent. The number of police responses involving the homeless dropped in one year by 99 percent. Although alcohol abuse wasn' t eradicated at The Vendome, there was a dramatic decrease.  

Today, The Vendome provides apartments for more than two dozen previously homeless residents. Each has chores to do and a code of behavior to follow. Every resident has a private room and is responsible for its cleanliness and maintenance. One current resident has started a garden and grows vegetables served at meals.

For some, the housing is provided free of charge. But The Vendome uses a sliding scale based on income to determine a resident' s rent. More and more residents have been able to earn money once they' ve stabilized their living arrangements.

However, not every homeless individual at The Vendome becomes a success story. Sometimes an alcohol or methamphetamine addiction returns, and the person goes back to the streets and to his or her former life. Sometimes mental illness plays a role in keeping a person from adjusting to life at The Vendome. But the majority of residents become responsible and happy as they settle into their surroundings. Some find work, and some even move into their own housing, reunite with family, and begin living independently.

Since Anderson' s retirement, another police officer, David Johnson, has  taken over Johnson' s role with HOT and The Vendome.

But Anderson has no plans to leave San Mateo. He still walks the streets, especially the downtown area, supporting the efforts of Mr. Johnson. They meet for lunch about once a month, when Anderson provides updates on what he' s been observing.

Anderson also stays in touch with homeless people he' s known for decades. One formerly homeless man (someone Anderson used to arrest and take to jail) has moved out of The Vendome into his own apartment. Not long ago, he surprised Anderson by asking him to be in his wedding. Many of Anderson' s former arrestees even have his phone number and e-mail address.

Anderson is often asked if San Mateo' s  success story could be duplicated in other cities. He' s happy to speak about it, he says, but he offers a word of caution. "This worked in our city only because I had personal relationships with these people," he explains. "But it took a very long time."

Anderson' s colleague, Ms. Walt, continues to join him in monthly walks around the downtown area. "If you could see how he' s received wherever he goes, you would know what an ambassador he is for the city," she says. "He' s beloved."

Anderson says he feels the same way about San Mateo, the city he' s served for more than 30 years " and counting.
How to take action

Universal Giving helps people give to and volunteer for top-performing charitable organizations around the world. All the projects are vetted by Universal Giving; 100 percent of each donation goes directly to the listed cause. Below are links to three organizations that help those in need:

• Globe Aware promotes cultural awareness and sustainability by helping communities prosper without becoming dependent on outside aid. Take action: Help the underprivileged in Romania.
• Miracles in Action provides Guatemalans in extreme poverty with opportunities to help themselves. Take action: Provide a backpack and school supplies to a poor child.
• Children of the Night helps rescue children from prostitution. Take action: Support the work of Children of the Night With Out Walls by providing activities, therapy, and support for mentally ill people.

The Christian Science Monitor

Winnipeg Free Press columnist Jen Zoratti examibnes the impact voluntourism has on communities, lives.

‘Voluntourism’ opens eyes, improves lives

Volunteer tourism — or the more buzzy “voluntourism” — has been at the centre of much debate over the past couple of years.

Once a niche in the travel industry, volunteer tourism is an area that has seen real growth as more and more Canadians are eschewing luxury resort vacations or European backpacking trips to build schools or teach English in developing countries. The profile of a voluntourist is usually young, middle- to upper-class and educated. Many of them are “gap year” students, taking a year off to go learn about the world.

On the face of it, it seems like a righteous act. What could possibly be bad about wanting to learn something about your global community and maybe help someone in the process? But, as travel websites of varying degrees of sketchiness offering “luxury voluntourism” — or, ugh, ‘honeyteering’ — proliferate, many critics of voluntourism are left questioning who this is really for. Do altruistic acts of voluntourism really help people who need it? Or are privileged people just doing it to pad their CVs/make themselves feel good? And are those things mutually exclusive?

Those questions were circling around in my head when I connected with Sarah Cullihall via Skype. Sarah is a 21-year-old University of Winnipeg business student who just concluded a months-long internship with Maya Traditions Foundation in Panajachel, Guatemala, and got in touch with me about the very cool work she’s been doing there. She doesn’t quite fit the profile of a voluntourist — she was doing an internship and she was there for more than a two-week vacation — but she, too, has thought about the voluntourism debate.

“One of my friends is a huge activist and we would argue about it all the time — is it good, is it bad,” she tells me, amid a cacophony of birds. “But I think with everything, there’s positives and negatives. But with (Maya Traditions), it’s so much more about support. When we look at other volunteer roles, it’s not like that. You’re in the ‘saviour’ role; you’re the North American that knows how to do things — and I think that’s so backwards. I also think it depends on why you’re doing it.”

Cullihall’s motivation was pretty pure. She fell in love with Guatemala during a trip last July, but was alarmed to learn more than half its population lives below the poverty line. Interested in exploring the ways in which business can be used to foster social change, she wanted to link up with an organization that shared those goals.

Founded in 1980, Maya Traditions Foundation is a fair trade social enterprise that supports skilled indigenous female artisans by connecting them to the international market and providing them with health and education services. The foundation now works in partnership with more than 120 artisans, composing eight self-governed artisan co-operatives in six rural villages. These women practise a variety of traditional techniques that have been carried down through generations, including backstrap weaving — a method used to create all manner of textiles — basket weaving and natural dyeing. With the support of the foundation, they are able to earn an income. And an income means independence — no small thing in a country plagued by domestic violence.

The women Cullihall met left an impression — women such as Mara Mendoza who, in addition to raising four small children on her own, is the president of one of Maya Traditions’ partnering artisan co-ops. Her role as president is to make sure her fellow artisans have enough work, their families are doing well and they are being fairly compensated for their labour.

“She, to me, is a depiction of a strong Guatemalan woman,” Cullihall says. Mendoza, like too many other Guatemalan women, was a victim of domestic abuse. Maya Traditions empowered her to leave her husband and take back her life. And now she’s helping others do the same.

For her part, Cullihall is returning to the U of W to finish her degree, and her experience in Guatemala has left her changed. She now wants to work with women and children in Latin America as part of a social enterprise.

While the average voluntourist won’t necessarily translate their experience into a career path, they will have their eyes opened to the issues faced by people who share their planet — and hopefully, they will be more empathetic people for it. If it’s done right with the right organization, a young person won’t just come out of it with a line for the resumé. They will come out of it a better person.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca

Winnipeg Free Press

Writing for Huffington Post, Mark Horoszowski, co-founder of MovingWorlds.org, a global platform connecting people who want to volunteer their skills with social impact organizations around the world, examines how volunteer travel and corporate volunteering can benefit companies.

World-Positive Leadership Development Programs

What is one thing that the Kenyan Red Cross and Microsoft have common? A lack of access to the expertise and skills needed to grow and make a bigger impact.

In both cases, this “talent gap” is slowing progress. Research proves that major companies, like Microsoft, have a lack of quality, globally-minded leaders AND that they recognize this as one of their biggest challenges. In the case of the Kenyan Red Cross, and other social impact organizations working to address last mile challenges around the world, the impact is more severe: nothing happens. This is especially alarming as these local organizations have the greatest potential to make an impact and create jobs, up to 80% in some economies. In fact, organizations like the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs and the World Economic Forum share that this “talent gap” is one of the leading barriers to progress.

Social impact organizations suffer from a lack of access to skills. Here are just a few examples of common needs:

• An accounting system before applying for investment capital or grants
• An improved operations and supply chain plan to lower costs
• A go-to-market launch plan for new products and startups
• Photography, videography, design, and messaging to develop new business development collateral
• An improved IT system to track healthcare data and trends of patients in remote areas
• An information distribution system to provide relevant data to rural farmers

While the challenges facing Microsoft and Kenyan Red Cross seem almost impossible to link, there is actually a powerful connection that can greatly benefit both parties: When employees from multinational corporations volunteer their skills with social impact organizations, they develop skills and learn new insights that can benefit their company. In the process, they help tackle major challenges that help smaller organizations get ahead.

International Corporate Volunteering (ICV) programs that do this continue to demonstrate a positive impact for all parties. People grow as global leaders, corporations benefit by developing higher performing people, and field organizations grow faster. In a previous article on Huffington Post, Alice Korngold shared that these programs can actually deliver bottom-line benefits to multinational companies.

These types of “World-Positive Leadership Development Programs” are just gaining traction. We’re helping people engage on these on their own and through established corporate volunteering programs. To help people that want to pilot programs like this at their own company, we’ve released a free checklist to help guide you.

Surprisingly, it’s not that difficult to launch an international volunteer program. One program we support was started by two passionate individuals with just two years of work experience. Here are some simple steps you can follow to implement a program at your company:

1. Research Your Business Priorities

Look for bright spots within your organization that might benefit from international volunteering. Business units like leadership development, recruiting, marketing, employee engagement, product and innovation teams are a great place to start as they are looking to create outcomes that programs like this can support.

2. Network and Find Support

Look for a partner and/or team to join you in launching a program. Search within volunteer and travel-based networks at your company. Schedule regular meeting to discuss how you can best design a program within the walls of your company.

3. Create a Business Plan

For a program like this to grow at your company, it has to make an impact for the world and for the company. Clearly document how it will help the company achieve its goals, while also improving conditions around the globe. Tools like this free “business case in a box” can help.

4. Find a Senior Champion

Use your network and business plan to find an internal champion who can provide budget and/or share your plan to senior leaders. The right person at the right level can help get the idea in front of other decision makers to help influence adoption.

5. Sell, sell, sell

Even with a compelling business case it still takes time. Don’t give up, and keep selling until your company has adopted a program. This can be done by continuing to grow grassroots support from your peers, while also continuing to pitch to senior leaders.

6. Start small

If you can’t convince your company to start a big pilot, that’s OK. You can still independently by asking your boss for time off to volunteer, and then use that to start building the case for a more formal program.

With all the buzz around the benefits of volunteering and the well-documented needs of organizations that need skilled volunteers, the time is ripe to launch a program at your company that builds better leaders, while building a better world.

The Huffington Post