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Her initial 90 days in Haiti (frustrating and mostly pointless) and her subsequent 90 days in Bangladesh (successful and useful) has informed her work and choices ever since. It was the difference between good intentions and good preparation.
How To Be An Amazing Volunteer Overseas will give you practical tips on how to decide what to do and where to go [and]...it will set you up to get the most out of your experience by learning from local leaders and contributing in a meaningful way.
Turning through the pages, the readers will find that Gibson motivates aspiring volunteers to find their gifts in life and sharing them in a meaningful manner with a realistic chance of success.
"This book will be useful for would-be workers in many other areas of international development, and it’s full of suggestions for how to get your foot in the door of such organizations".
Veteran volunteer Susan Gibson's new book advises aspiring voluntourists how to make a truly positive impact — from finding the right organisation to questioning your own motivations. Here, she shares tips from a career spanning 70 countries.
When you are passionate about something, there's no stopping you. Susan Gibson started volunteering in her hometown of Toronto, Canada as a teenager. And her book, "How To Be An Amazing Volunteer Overseas," is a practical and useful tool to help motivate aspiring volunteers to contribute in the most meaningful ways.
For the thousands of students who volunteer or intend to volunteer overseas, Western alumna Susan E. Gibson has a word of advice: prepare to learn before you expect to serve.
Susan is an advocate for better voluntourism and also has some great resources on her website Amazing Volunteer. If you're not thinking about volunteering abroad then still take a listen, because this is a huge industry that can bring good.
Susan Gibson brings her moxie to the volunteer world, sharing her observations and advice so others can discover how international volunteerism and travel, as well as local involvement, can change the world, their communities–and themselves.
Susan E. Gibson has been involved in the non-profit sector for more than 35 years. She offers her tips for responsible voluntourism.
Susan shares her experience of volunteering, talks about the mindset you’ll need to see it through, what sort of thing you might expect, what pitfalls to avoid, and where to get started.
How to be an Amazing Volunteer Overseas: Rules of the Road, Stories from the Field is a playbook for first-time volunteers. Highly practical in nature, the book and its accompanying website cover everything from how to find and get the most of a placement, to suggested packing lists and health and hygiene tips.
Voluntourism has become the topic of important discussions around international development. Often, a key characteristic of voluntourism is that the development ‘problem’ (what the project aims to address) is perpetuated because the project is designed to meet the needs of the volunteers at the expense of providing a real solution.
In just over 200 action-packed pages, How To Be An Amazing Volunteer Overseas covers an enormous amount of ground in four key parts: 1) deciding to go on a volunteer trip, 2) preparing to travel, 3) adapting to a new country, and 4) readjusting to life back home. In a frank, authoritative and friendly voice, Susan guides readers through the unglamorous realities and gratifying rewards of volunteering and working abroad, balancing pragmatic information with personal anecdotes from her experiences
Susan has written what I believe is the most useful and practical book on international volunteering that I have ever read, How To Be An Amazing Volunteer Overseas.
Susan knows what she is writing about.
After more than two years of travel restrictions and a general sense of hesitation about going abroad, the world is opening up to steady flows of international volunteers. With multiple large-scale humanitarian crises developing, from climate change to complex conflicts and beyond, help is needed more than ever.
Bottom line: do your research, make sure you’re qualified to do what you’re volunteering to do, and that you and whatever org you’re volunteering for are getting are both going to benefit from the relationship.
"Everyone who wishes to volunteer abroad will find this book helpful, practical and thought-provoking".
"A highly practical guide that simplifies what it takes to volunteer abroad".