Volunteers in America. Los Angeles
Where to start
Organizers of volunteer projects are annoyed by “voluntourism” - when people come to them to travel and not to work. So right away, honestly ask yourself what you really want, to look at the world or to help. There is someone to help: children in Nepal, old people in Norway, disabled people in Germany, farmers in New Zealand, crumbling castles in France, giraffes in Africa... Let's whisper a secret: no matter what you answer, you can still be a volunteer.
* There is a separate division for young people.
Personal experience
One of the most famous projects in the world is saving sea turtles in Costa Rica. Preserve the eggs and then show the young turtles the way to the sea. I decided to sign up there for a try.
Using the “Costa Rica” and “Envoiroment” filters, I found the desired program, selected August and sent an application in which I indicated all my data, profession, language skills and experience. Which, by the way, doesn't exist. I had to simply confess my love for animals.
A day later, I received a letter asking what exactly I would like to do on the beach. “Swim and sunbathe!” - I wanted to exclaim, but we are serious volunteers, so I answered: anything, as long as it’s with the turtles themselves. A day later I received an invitation to the selected dates with a reminder that turtles are delicate creatures and it is forbidden to touch them with your hands. If you don’t want to take a selfie under the shell, welcome to Costa Rica. Easy and elegant.
Our job is to collect turtle eggs and bury them in the sand for preservation. In a few months, other volunteers will dig them up, help the babies hatch and make sure they successfully reach the sea. You catch either nesting or birth.
What and how is paid
There is an opinion that volunteers travel for nothing. This is not entirely and not always the case. There are three types of programs: completely free, partially free and paid.
The former are a minority. For example, the EVS program. It is only valid in Europe for those over 18 but under 30. The organizers cover 90% of expenses, including flights and pocket money, so getting there is not easy. The application may take several months to be considered, so choose more projects - at least a hundred. You have to be lucky with one.
You will have an interview on Skype, coordination of details - in general, a lot of official routine, which does not even mean that you will definitely go.
Conditionally free programs They will give you housing and food on the spot (they give grants for this), but for everything else you have to pay out of your own pocket. Plus, upon registration, they will charge a fixed participation fee. Each organization has its own, but on average it is about 5,000 rubles. The location is usually Europe.
Work - restoration of castles, renovation of museums, construction of a new conservatory, excavation of a primitive man's site, farming. An application for a specific project may be considered for about a month, but since by this time you will have already paid the fee, they will definitely find something for you.
Private organizations work according to the same scheme - children's camps, schools, monasteries. You can specifically search in your favorite place. For example, the famous “tiger monastery” Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua in Thailand is constantly recruiting volunteers. Food and accommodation included, work from 7 am to 5 pm, fluent English. Tickets at your own expense. A bonus is daily communication with tigers of all ages.
Finally, paid programs. You pay the fee, the visa with tickets and the program itself. This money will be used to house you and feed you. The question is, what the hell? I answer.
The homeland of such projects is Asia, Africa, South America. The receiving party simply does not have the money to serve you. Two weeks in Cambodia will cost $350, in an African reserve - $1,100, and turtles in Costa Rica will cost me $500. But, as practice has shown, getting into such a program is easy.
Katya, 19 years old, Novosibirsk. “I passed several tests and an interview on Skype to become a volunteer at the Olympics in Sochi. We went first to test competitions, then to the main ones. Both times it turned out that we had to pay for the air tickets ourselves. But 40 thousand isn’t a lot for a cool experience.”
Experience
“They won’t hire me, I don’t know how to do anything.” In fact, there is only one requirement - English. It needs to be trained after submitting an application. Even a slightly below average level will do if you don’t plan to work as a guide or administrator. There are programs that require high qualifications, for example, medical practices in Africa. But usually the required qualities are sociability, openness, desire to work and unpretentiousness. About the latter - separately.
Kostya, 27 years old, Samara. “I worked with older people in Spain. It was not so much my good English that came in handy as my fluent Spanish: our charges spoke only native language, and in some special dialect. Well, the previous experience in Russia and France was useful.”
Don't expect comfort
Whatever project you choose and no matter how much you pay, you will have to live very modestly. Tents, sleeping bags, school classes, hostels, sometimes rented housing for several volunteers or local families. Hot water and familiar European food are the exception, not the rule. All the money goes into the project, and not into your comfort, so get ready for camping conditions.
Ilya, 37 years old, Kolomna. “My wife and I worked at a school in Cuba. We lived in a dorm, washed ourselves with running water, slept on a bunk bed - no privacy. But it’s romance!”
Work is not a wolf
According to unspoken rules, a volunteer is forced to work 6 days a week, 6 hours a day, and may be forced to dig beds, carry stones or collect snails. If you buck and leave, you will end up on the “black list.”
Irina, 36 years old, Arkhangelsk, organizer. “Today, almost everywhere you can live for free through couchsurfing, and travel by hitchhiking. Volunteering is not a vacation where you sleep until noon. There are certain tasks that need to be completed. We’ve arrived and get to work.”
Get overwhelmed by the crowd
Most likely it won't work. Organizations try to recruit a diverse group. In paid programs they will accommodate you halfway, but others are not so loyal. SCI strictly selects participants by age, nationality, and gender. You can get into the same project with your great aunt from Norway, but with your significant other - if you're lucky. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a husband or a friend - you are from the same country and the “neighboring” age. There is little chance that they will take it.
Work without money for thanks. Many in the United States do this out of a desire to help or gain the necessary experience. Volunteering for newcomers to America is a good opportunity to adapt to a new environment, brush up on the language, practice in an area of interest, or simply get busy if you don’t have a work permit in the States. For those who are ready to work for free, the Forum tells you what benefits volunteering can bring.
Two sides of the coin
In America, being a volunteer is useful, and in some cases necessary. In particular, during college, students often need to complete a professional internship, during which they work as volunteers, for free, in their specialty. Volunteering can also be the first career step for a young professional with no work experience who wants to join his dream company, or for a newly arrived migrant who wants to join a professional environment. Having volunteer experience behind you makes it easier to find a job or go to college.
For more than a century and a half of the existence of the volunteer movement in the United States free labor began to be used in almost all areas - from working with children or the elderly to the film sets of multimillion-dollar Hollywood films. However, sometimes companies openly abuse the altruism of volunteers. Thus, in 2013, interns who worked for free for more than six months for the film company Fox Searchlight Pictures on the set of the film “Black Swan”, which earned more than $300 million, won the trial and sued for their wages.
IMPORTANT: The US Department of Labor clearly defines six criteria when internships in commercial companies may not be paid:
- internship is essentially vocational training;
- the experience gained is useful for the intern;
- the intern does not replace the employee, but works under his leadership;
- the employer does not receive direct benefits from the intern's activities;
- the intern does not necessarily receive workplace after completing the internship;
- the employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to payment for time spent in the internship.
However, in general, the US population volunteers a lot and with pleasure.According to the latest data , in 2014, every fourth resident of the country was involved in volunteer activities in one form or another. And even US President Barack Obama regularly volunteers at the Martha’s Table charity organization on the eve of Thanksgiving and distributes food to those in need. At the same time, his entire family volunteers with him - his wife, children and even his mother-in-law.
How to help yourself by helping others
Newly arrived immigrants can find many advantages in volunteering if, of course, they are mentally prepared to work for free.
- Volunteering will help you learn English and integrate into society
The best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in language environment and communicate more. You will be accepted to volunteer at any level of language proficiency.
There are many volunteer positions where you don’t even have to talk, but you can listen and delve as much as you like. This could be working in a library, museum, or souvenir shops at museums or amusement parks. Volunteering in the classroom is suitable for mothers of schoolchildren - you can help the teacher, cut and glue educational materials. Nature lovers can help at farms, parks, animal shelters and zoos.
Such volunteer work will also help newcomers to the United States understand the mentality and details of everyday life Americans.
Where to look for positions:
If there are no suitable positions on general sites, then you can try a specialized search. Just enter “volunteering” and your area of interest into the search bar. For example, physics, biology, medicine and so on. You can also enter your location or even view a position at a specific institution.
Elena Kostrygina came to the United States from Donetsk 15 years ago and immediately took a volunteer position as a web administrator: she created survey forms on the site, learned to communicate correctly by e-mail and phone, and updated the site. In total, the work took about ten hours a week.
Elena Kostrygina worked as a volunteer in her profession. Photo from personal archive.
Elena did the same thing in her homeland, so a year and a half of volunteering became an excellent work experience for her, an opportunity to improve her professional and spoken language and a worthy line on her resume. “For those who want to continue doing their business upon arrival in the USA professional matter“, I would advise you to find volunteering in your field and work in this field for some time,” she says.
- Volunteering will help you enroll and graduate from college.
In both schools and colleges, any volunteer activity is encouraged - it helps teenagers develop leadership skills, shows their activity and initiative, and later becomes a good start for building a resume. In addition, volunteering helps teenagers decide what areas they are interested in, what they are strong in, and what makes sense to work on.
Volunteering in school years- a big plus when applying to college. Volunteering, or the so-called internship (internship), is a prerequisite for graduating from college. For the interns themselves, this is an opportunity to gain practical experience, which can be safely included in their resume. However, as a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, cited by the American Forbes , interns who completed an unpaid internship get jobs with lower salaries than those who did not undergo an internship at all. But after a paid internship, graduates find higher-paying positions.
Where to look for positions:
For interns:
Natalia Volkodav came to the United States from Zaporozhye in 2009 with her husband and child. I wanted to improve my English and not sit at home all the time, so I almost immediately got a job as a decorator in a bakery. After six months of work, volunteers were promised a decorator certificate and the opportunity to get a paid job. But within a few months Natalya found a job in a restaurant at the San Jose airport, and the line about volunteering in her resume helped her significantly.
Volunteering helped Natalya Volkodav improve her English and fill out the necessary line on her resume. Photo from personal archive.
And in 2014, Natalya entered a California college for a two-year nursing course. Volunteering as a nurse is a mandatory requirement during training. Natalia has already volunteered at the Kaizer Medical Center, as well as at individual events and examinations. This gave her not just a line on her resume, but also irreplaceable experience, with which she has a much greater chance of being in demand in her profession.
“Volunteering is a very important component of education and profession. After all, for an employer it’s like a sign: if a person agrees to do something for free, it means he’s really interested in it,” she said.
- Volunteering will allow you to do interesting thing and help others
If you do not have and do not yet have the opportunity to work, but you are full of energy and want to develop, be useful and needed, then volunteering becomes an ideal opportunity to realize yourself. You can choose a job in your field professional activities or find one-time events if you don’t have time for full-time volunteering. And for those who cannot sit still and are attracted by the wind of distant travels, volunteer positions abroad are perfect. Volunteers are always needed for schools and training centers around the world. The only “but” is that you will have to pay for flights, insurance and, possibly, housing. - working with children, volunteering at a surfer's beach
http://www.wwoof.net/ — volunteering on organic farms
https://movingworlds.org/ — dozens of different positions around the world
http://www.freevolunteering.net/ - diverse positions
http://www.camphill.org/ — work with children and people with special needs
Elena Aravina has been in California for 2.5 years. Almost immediately after arriving from Saratov, she found a volunteer position at the Russian festival historical heritage“Fort Ross”, which takes place annually near San Francisco. According to Elena, she was driven primarily by curiosity and the desire to find herself, but this first experience gave her a lot: communication, language practice, socialization. And after that, volunteering itself became a conscious choice - to give part of my free time to a socially useful cause.
Elena Aravina volunteers at the Fort Ross festival. Photo from personal archive.
Elena is currently studying in college, so she cannot volunteer on a regular basis due to her school schedule. However, she is often found in the Silicon Valley Volunteers group on Meetup.com interesting one-time volunteer projects. In particular, Elena has already joined the tree planting campaign.
“Volunteering for me, an introvert, is first and foremost a challenge to myself. After all, you almost always have to communicate with strangers. In addition, it turned out to be very nice to do something for free. The main thing is to choose something you like, so that it does not greatly interfere with personal plans, then work will invariably be a pleasure!” - Elena thinks.
Now she is finishing her studies at college and preparing to go to work, but she does not plan to give up her volunteer work even in the future.
Los Angeles is a city that has it all! There is a wide variety of shops, attractions, restaurants and interesting places. This southern city all year round pleases tourists with fantastic weather and local residents. Los Angeles offers a wide range of attractions that are visited by many tourists from all over the world every year. Disneyland, Hermosa Beach, Melrose Avenue, Dodger Stadium, Laguna Beach, Universal Studios Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Santa Monica and Malibu - all this will make your trip unforgettable. There is no other city in the world where the likelihood of meeting your idol would be so high. The hustle and bustle of the city streets will make you feel as if you have lived in Los Angeles all your life in just a few days! This city is home to a large number of different nationalities and cultures.
A language course in Los Angeles is a valuable experience. You learn English under the strict guidance of highly qualified native-speaking teachers, and discover one of the most stunning cities in the world. Here you will find everything! The bustling city will charm everyone. Courses English language is an investment in the future, an unforgettable experience and new friends. Los Angeles will make a pleasant impression on you.
Advantages of a language school:
- The language school is located in the center of Los Angeles;
- Accepted from the age of 14 (not all US schools do this!);
- Just a few minutes walk from the beach;
- The perfect combination of study and relaxation;
- A mentor is provided;
- You can live either in a family or on a college campus;
- Full board.
Dates:
- June 23 - August 11, 2019
Cost (3 weeks):
= $3985 USD(summer period)
= $3675 USD(other times of the year)
The cost of the program includes:
- 20 English lessons per week;
- Single or Double accommodation in an American family;
- Three meals a day;
- Program of activities: sporting events, barbecues, shopping trips, a trip to the amusement park, bowling;
- 2 full-day excursions;
- Transfer from/to the airport;
- Certificate of completion of the program.
Additional charges:
- Registration fee of the Excellente company = 15,000 rubles;
- Consular fee = 160 USD;
- Additional excursion program = $85 USD per week ( if desired);
- Medical insurance;
- Air ticket.
Please note: Transfer is included in the price of the trip. If you arrive and/or leave on a date other than the day of arrival (Sunday) and departure (Saturday), the transfer will be paid separately! Transfer from Los Angeles International Airport: $80 USD; to the airport: $40 USD
The coordinators of our Company deal with visa processing, help to correctly formulate a package of documents, fill out consular forms, sign up for an interview at the consulate, and prepare for an interview with a visa officer.
We also help you obtain air tickets at reduced rates and obtain medical insurance.
All prices are in USD (Program prices in USD are valid when purchasing programs directly from EF Education First Ltd. (Switzerland))
Additional information about transfer and prices
Medical and general travel insurance coverage
To provide exclusive coverage for its students, EF Education First has partnered with Erika Insurance Ltd. for over 20 years. EF staff worldwide are trained in Erika policies and can provide on-site assistance. Since insurance is required for all travelers traveling abroad, Erika will be included in your invoice automatically when requesting a quote and booking your course. You must provide a copy of your insurance policy with similar coverage if you wish to cancel Erika. Otherwise, this insurance coverage will be included in the program cost calculation.
Insurance covers:
- In case of illness lasting more than 2 days, Erika will cover the daily cost of training
- If you miss more than half of a course due to illness or accident, Erika can pay for an identical course at EF so you can complete your studies
- Unlimited medical coverage (some exceptions apply)
- A unique partnership with Aetna, the largest association of doctors and healthcare providers in the United States, means you don't have to pay for expensive medical care on your own
- Theft, flight delay, damage to third parties and legal support are also included in Erika's insurance coverage
- All sports and leisure activities organized by EF are fully covered by Erika Insurance
More detailed information about insurance conditions is available on the official website www.erikainsurance.com.