Why Volunteer Work Abroad with Openmind Projects abroad
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Our local presence. We support genuine grassroots projects that welcome overseas volunteers to work abroad for low and affordable costs. We started 10 years ago in Thailand as IT in Isan. We create better learning opportunities fior the poor, children and adults. We use a different and modern Teaching and Learning Philosophy. Volunteers gain an immediate cross culture and volunteer work abroad understanding, in our unique Volunteer Training. Read Horizon International, Yale University, www.solutions-site.org/node/332, about Openmind Projects, a Finalist in the Stockholm Challenge ICT for development |
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Jorinde from Germany. I highly recommend the 3-day training to anyone volunteering. It gave me a great insight into Thai culture and language. For me, it was very useful since I had never been to Thailand before, but if you already have, I still highly recommend it. Enjoy! |
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Spend your volunteering overseas money wisely! Openmind Projects offers low cost, affordable and value for money volunteering work abroad. Why pay 60-90 USD, 50-75 EUR, per day? The rates many European and US travel and volunteer organizations charge. When you can pay only 22 USD or 17 EUR per day with Openmind Projects in Thailand for a two month period? Our Volunteer with Support option is a real bargain! 22 USD or 17 EUR is about 680 Thai Baht. A room in a guesthouse in Thailand would cost you 4-700 Baht per day and does not include a volunteer placement/project, meals, volunteer support, handbooks or training! Your entire fee goes towards supporting our grass roots projects in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Nepal as well as our overseas volunteers, not to any administration, office, promotion or other costs overseas. Our Affordable volunteer abroad fees and with the volunteer support that you choose. |
Learning for life, nature, and future! We believe knowledge is the key to poverty reduction, democracy, and environmental protection!
What sets Openmind Projects abroad apart from traditional volunteer organizations?
Openmind Projects abroad is different from travel and volunteer/voluntourist organizations based overseas. Our origin is as a local grassroots development aid project in the remote and poor northeastern Thailand.We offer affordable volunteer work abroad opportunities to help empower local people in fascinating and beneficial grassroots projects.
Volunteer with us if you want value for your money—affordable volunteer abroad fees—while still enjoying quality volunteer support from our local staff.
Judith from the UK. I was advised to go on the training program. To be honest, I did not want to go. Why travel to North Thailand when my placement was in the south? The course was a baptism of fire. We were expected to learn some useful phrases, introduce ourselves to Thai people, and lastly, teach a short lesson to novice monks at a temple school! The staff is dedicated to their projects and managed to work us hard while still having a lot of fun. In the end, I was well-impressed. Thank you Openmind Projects. You deserve your success!
When you volunteer overseas you help other people and you help yourself!
Poor people overseas lack the resources necessary to improve their lives. You can help the local people by using your skills wh volunteer work abroad. Local peopler you to cross cultural understanding while you work with them.
Touch your dreams and discover your real self!
Volunteering with Openmind Projects abroad opens your mind to new cultures overseas, to new ideas, new ways of living in and looking at the world, new places and things you cannot understand without experiencing them first hand! These experiences lead to new perspectives on your own life, your ways of dealing with differences, of overcoming challenges, of solving problems in culturally sensitive ways. You have real growth potential through your volunteer abroad work!
Volunteer in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Nepal
Volunteer in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, or Nepal with us if you have long dreamt of volunteer work abroad to empower underprivileged people and want the genuine experience you gain from grassroots volunteer work in another culture, if you want to be the one volunteer who goes from talking to doing. You get a lifelong and astounding memory as well as very valuable personal development.
Volunteer with Openmind Projects if you want to help people abroad out of poverty, you agree with us that knowledge is key, and you believe in sharing modern learning methods with the less privileged. Volunteer with us if you recognize that computers and the internet may be a great help for poor children and students to learn when they lack other educational resources. Your volunteer abroad fee benefits our local projects and thereby the underprivileged people who rely on them. It helps as well our trainees who stay at our Training Center in Nong Khai and who come from our local projects where you can go to volunteer!
Anita from Australia. I initially was not keen on doing the training . Thank goodness I did because it was here that occurred to me on what an amazing experience this trip was going to be. Not only did I receive a lot of help, but we were also given the tasks of applying our new learned Thai at the local food shops and markets. These experiences proved to be invaluable. During our last evening in NongKhai , Sven, gave us a detailed description of the project. I could have listened to him all night talking about the project, his past project experiences, Thai culture, etc. All of the information we all received was both incredibly interesting, motivational and very useful.
What's in our name?
An open mind is curious, open to new ideas, to new perspectives on the world, to learn, to change. We open minds, yours and the people’s you volunteer with!
Volunteer with Openmind Projects abroad and you get a chance to help underprivileged people who are eager and want to learn but who lack access to the resources those in the developed world take for granted. Help them develop the skills they need for a better future. There are multiple ways you can help:
- Teach English and encourage local people to want to learn English.
- Help bridge the digital divide between the developed and underdeveloped worlds by helping children and teenagers learn how to use computers and the internet.
- Reach out to isolated villages, off the beaten track. Help poor villagers develop sustainable and community based eco tourism to draw tourists and earn a welcome extra income.
- Work on wildlife protection projects. Help local people learn to safeguard nature and wildlife.
Our unique Cross Culture and Volunteer Training
By volunteering abroad with Openmind Projects you not only get to learn about a different culture, a new language, new food, new ways of life by immersing yourself in the daily life of the local people. You can start with our free, very different, and extremely useful 3-day Cross Culture and Volunteer Training. Our local people welcome you, train you, help you to adapt to and experience the true cultures of Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia! This cross culture and volunteer training is done by making you swim already the first day!
Bridge knowledge and cultural divides!
By becoming a bridge to knowledge and cross-cultural understanding you will make many friends with people from cultures so different from your own.
Openmind Projects currently supports over 60 projects abroad in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Nepal . If you wish, you can go to multiple projects during your volunteer experience abroad. Openmind Projects will assist you in setting up single or multiple placements from schools to orphanages to national parks and more.
As an international volunteer, you will gain new perspectives and cross-cultural understanding and improve your teaching, social, and leadership skills. You will gain a global perspective, an open mind, expand your creativity, increase your adaptabilities, and gain new insights into yourself.
Having an overseas volunteer experience provides very useful and desirable ways to strengthen your resume or CV. Not only will you be helping local people in Southeast Asia have a better future, but you will be helping yourself as well!
Summary what is so special about OMP?
| 1. | Our Volunteering, Learning and Volunteer Costs Philosophy |
| 2. | Our original idea about IT/computer learning: how to learn to use IT, DED/learning by doing/practice and how to learn to use IT as a learning tool to learn English, about the world |
| 3. | Our idea about learning a language: learn and apply immediately, |
| 4. | And therefore how to teach language: how to structure a lesson; teach, repeat, practice/apply in dialogues/role plays, and end with a game |
| 5. | Our minimalist idea about operating an organization with low costs but with local ripple effects |
| 6. | Our idea about operating an organization with local people, recruited from our own field projects to train them to future careers. |
| 7. | Our Openmind Projects Training Center in Nong Khai as a learning center to train local trainees in self paced learning with computers and internet and ‘elder’ local staff and overseas volunteers as trainers. |
| 8. | Our Openmind Projects Training Center as a learning center to model new centers on. |
