Frequently Asked Questions

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Teams

Q. How are the teams put together?

Our aim is to create teams that reflect the diversity of the UK population. We look at a number of factors including age, experience, gender, economic, social and geographical background. However, there are limits to this when you have just 8 to 9 people in a team.

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Counterpart pairs

Q. How will we be paired up?

After you've spent some time with your team on the in-country orientation course (ICO), we'll ask you to write down which three people from the exchange country you'd like to live with. We usually ask you to put these names down in your order of preference. Your two project supervisors will then pair you up as best they can. Their decision is usually done in confidence.

Choosing a partner for the next six months is a very difficult task and you will only be making the choice on very limited knowledge. As with most aspects of the programme, what you make of things is often the most important factor. Your work counterpart will be chosen based on your shared interests and the kind of projects you want to get involved with.

Q. When do we find out who our counterparts are?

You'll find out who your counterparts are on the second or third day of the ICO course. We like to pair you up while you still have a couple of days on the training course to bond and get to know each other before you go to your new host community and host home. For the person who is overseas, this transition period is usually the most stressful, so this is when you'll need to give or receive the most support.

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Host communities

Q. How does the programme choose the host communities?

We draw on the experiences of CSV to highlight areas where our volunteers can have a really positive impact. There's a lot more potential for learning if volunteers work in a community where a need exists. As far as possible, we try to place people in a host community that's quite different to their own. This means that each host community is a new experience for the whole team.

Q. Are we allowed home once the programme starts? Can family and friends visit us?

We ask you to focus on the programme throughout the six months, concentrating on your personal goals and thinking about how you can benefit your host communities. In the UK, you'll only be in your host community for 12 weeks, a period which volunteers tell us flies by! Experience has shown that the volunteers who throw themselves into the philosophy of the programme gain the most out of it. This is one reason why we advise volunteers against taking trips home.

Keep your counterpart in mind. If the situation were reversed, and you'd just arrived in Thailand, would you appreciate being left on your own with your hosts, unable to speak the language? And think about your team - can everyone afford to go home? Will the overseas volunteers be able to go home in the overseas phase? Are you just using going home as an escape route when the programme gets tough?

So there are various reasons why we ask you not to go home during the programme. However, one trip home may be allowed in the event of you resolving all of the following issues:

  • your counterpart can go with you or does not mind being left alone
  • all team members can afford to do this
  • you can all agree on one weekend
  • your project supervisors have given permission.

You shouldn't miss a global citizenship day or time at work. There shouldn't be more than one trip home unless circumstances are exceptional (a serious illness in the family, for example).

A preferable alternative to a trip home is a visitors' weekend, when friends and family can come to you, rather than you leaving the programme to go to them. Again, the whole team would have to agree on this and a specific weekend would have to be planned with the supervisors' consent at the start of the programme.

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Host homes

Q. How are the host homes chosen?

Before the programme starts, your project supervisors will spend three months in the host community. They'll generate lots of publicity to raise the programme's profile - they'll write articles in the local press, put up flyers and talk to community groups. Most of this publicity will revolve around looking out for potential work placements, as well as potential hosts.

The project supervisors will arrange to visit the house and meet the hosts. A reference will be needed from another member of the community. Hosts are invited to attend a briefing session where they can find out more, and there'll be follow up meetings with the hosts closer to the commencement of the programme.

Q. How easy is it to find host homes? What do they get out of it? What do they pay for? What do we pay for?

Finding people who are willing to open up their house to two complete strangers can be a challenge, but we have lots of experience in finding hosts. A great deal of hard work goes into this process and it's worth remembering how much the hosts are trusting us with their hospitality. They receive only £75 per week per pair. This is enough to cover the basic costs (3 meals a day and extra gas / electricity used). It's not enough to cover lots of extra journeys and phone calls.

Most families agree to host so that they can learn more about the lives of other people from around the UK and from overseas. We deliberately keep the allowance low so that we can recruit people who are genuinely interested in the programme. We don't, however, want people to be out of pocket.

Q. What kinds of host homes have you had in the past?

Diversity is key to our programme, and that's why we're keen to recruit a really wide range of people to provide our volunteers with host homes. Previous hosts have included a retired widower of 75, and a Major and his wife who lived in a castle - variety is, after all, the spice of life! Far more important than having 2.4 children and a dog is a willingness to involve our volunteers in all aspects of daily life.

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Volunteer placements

Q. How are the volunteer placements chosen?

The project supervisors have a long list of criteria that they look at when choosing a placement. Will the placement offer benefits for the community? Does it offer a reasonable variety of activities volunteers can contribute to and learn from? Is there adequate supervision?

Each programme has a theme that reflects the work volunteers will do in the community. For example, a Nigeria exchange with an HIV/AIDS theme might include working around peer education and raising awareness. Other themes have included disability, peace and interfaith.

Q. What kinds of volunteer placements have you had in the past?

We've had three broad areas of placements: educational, care and environmental. Volunteers have worked at centres for people with learning difficulties, as assistants in nursery and primary schools, helped run play schemes and volunteered with environmental groups doing hands-on conservation management.

Each community will have its own make-up of social projects. As a result, we've had placements that have been fairly unique to those communities. For example, one organisation in a host community in Wiltshire had created links with a town in the Gambia, West Africa and two volunteers worked with them on their publicity and admin work.

Q. What will we be doing? Can we choose our own volunteer placements?

We want to give people as much choice as we can about their volunteer placements. However, because we work in small rural communities the variety and choice of placements will be limited. In order to ensure their quality, a lot of work goes in to the preparation of placements. It wouldn't be fair to do this with a large number of volunteer placements only to let them down at the last moment because nobody wanted to work there, so sometimes volunteers' choices are limited.

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Global Citizenship days (GCDs)

Q. What are GCDs? Who runs them?

You'll take part in an GCD once a week. These are a vital part of the programme, providing an invaluable opportunity to develop skills, learn more about local community issues and to give and receive team support. You'll learn a lot about how other societies experience and deal with similar issues.

GCDs are run by volunteers. As long as it's related to community development, any topic can be explored. For example, the day might focus on local trade, environmental management or gender roles in the local community.