It’s said that we travel to change ideas, not places. Getting away from work or studies, living new experiences, getting to know a foreign country, meeting new people, improving a language… There are many reasons to pick up your passport and take off on a new adventure.
Social volunteering
Volunteering is becoming a more and more popular opportunity for young people, who are passionate about seeing the world to travel with a higher purpose – to make an impact on society.
Apart from upgrading your CV by volunteering for some time, the main benefit is that by doing volunteer work people really grow up on many levels – gaining useful experience, developing social skills, leaving a positive mark, representing a good cause and promoting goodness in this world, while providing inter-cultural exchange of knowledge for the volunteer themselves as well as the organisation or community that’s being served.
Volunteering at Hostelling International Norway
The Hostelling International philosophy is to inspire travellers to promote sustainable values, create a peaceful environment and open minds. This is also one of the reasons why Hostelling International in many countries has an active social volunteering program.
Here in Norway we have welcomed two European Voluntary Service (EVS) volunteers from Spain and Slovakia at the Haraldsheim Hostel in Oslo, who will be staying with us for 10 months. One of the many ways for European youth to become volunteers is the Erasmus + / EVS programme. For European youth between 18 and 30, the programme gives a chance to volunteer and live in another country for up to 12 months.
The volunteers‘ function will be to create activities for guests and the local community – in short, to bring people together. They will also get involved in Hostel activities, pitch in ideas for further development, boost sustainability, manage the social media activities of the Hostel. It’s an opportunity to dive into the Norwegian culture, meet people from around the world and experience realities totally different from theirs.
There is also another volunteer program taking place in Western Norway – the „Social Volunteer Program“. Here, volunteers can stay between 6 weeks and 3 months at different hostels in Western Norway. The volunteers always start in the beautiful city of Bergen, learning the basics of the program and making various activities for the guests such as city walks or common dinners. Sounds interesting?
Check out volunteering.no for more information.
Find a hostel in Norway.
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Words by: Maria de la Cruz and Katarina Vlkova on behalf of HI Norway.
Do you have any personal experiences with volunteering you’d like to share? We want to hear all about it! Send us a comment on any of the links below.
