Bad Volunteering Experience: Watch This to Avoid my Mistakes with Workaway!
If you’re thinking about volunteering abroad,
especially with workaway, please watch this video because here I’m going to tell you about my bad
experience and also my conclusion like how you can make your experience better. That’s very important
I think, and I’m saying that it’s it is one of the worst experiences in my life because I’ve been
to a bunch of different youth exchange programs in the USA, the UK. I did also volunteering in
Amsterdam like a year of volunteering and I did a bunch of Erasmus programs. So I have this
background to talk about it, and I am asking myself a lot of questions why that was so bad.
But the questions we’re going to answer exactly in this video first of all if you should go
for workaway, or you should go for some other programs. That’s really really important I think.
And that second question is if you still decide to go to work away. So what mistakes you can avoid
because I prepared some reflection here and we are back to this slide because I want to show you this
amazing picture. You see I am very very happy. I’m in this amazing swimming pool and that was great
time because this swimming pool was the only only advantage of this project. My workway experience
in France in the south of France, but actually I’m a liar. So that was the second reason to be there.
It’s hammock. I love hammocks. I love swings. So that’s what that was the great time. And yeah,
talking about good things. Let’s come back to all the advantages of workaway and why my husband
and I for example we decided to go exactly for workaway. Just small thing if you choose between
workaway, worldpackers and helpx – those are pretty similar hubs to find projects all over the
world and go like help someone it can be an NGO it can be a business, or it can be just a person
who needs help. So talking about those advantages, let’s talk about our reasons. Maybe you have
the same set of reasons to go so you will you know recognize yourself in this video. The
first one it was very very personal for us. So this picture is not really clear maybe um
there is me, my husband. So we met during our volunteering project and that’s how we became an
international couple. And I’m saying this because we love adventures. We love meeting people. We
love something new, discovering places. So for us, it was like some kind of unusual vacation,
and also you know to entertain our life to see something new. The second reason why we were
going exactly for work away was its flexibility. I find it pretty pretty flexible and also variety
of projects. When you go to the website, you see all those beautiful projects. You see that you can
work in castles, you can work on the ocean, and it inspires you a lot, right? So you are all into
it and it it inspired us of course. Flexibility is about that you can really choose between
dates. You can go for a week, you can go for several months, and you can also negotiate with
your future host. That’s an incredible part of it. That’s what we did also. So we negotiated with
our host that the first week will be only for my husband. Second week will be we will be together
and third week it will be only me. You choose, you put your skill of negotiations all in, and you
don’t need to do the next step. You don’t need to compete. So there is no competition. Like if we’re
talking about um Erasmus projects, I often go for, youth exchanges or stuff like that, you don’t
need to make any applications or any like video presentation or whatsoever and that what makes
it great. So you just talk to people, text them sometimes, and it looks very easy and there is
a fee. I don’t know why I said that because I feel like we are coming to the negative part of
this program, right? So those are negative parts which just happened to us, and I’m going to say it
how how it was. So just to be clear, we went to a project in the south of France. We were looking
for projects in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and France. Yeah, pretty, you know, basic. So we found
a host. It’s a glamping. It’s a Dutch glamping. And Dutch people run it. Dutch couple runs this
glamping. And it’s kind of a fancy glamping. So like people who come over there, they come from
the Netherlands. And those people are like lawyers and doctors and maybe a little bit famous in
their fields and stuff like that. And that was our project. It was in the middle of nowhere. We knew
that in the beginning. And I will come to this. But let’s start from the first thing which hit me
a lot. It’s bad accommodation. On the description, it was written that we’re going to have this van,
caravan, or we’re going to have a room in a guest house. And we said, “Yeah, let’s go for it. We’ll
love that. We’ll love those adventures.” In fact, we were proposed, we were proposed a tent. So,
like a usual tent. And don’t take me wrong, please. I love tents. And I spent, maybe I will
even show you. I spent my childhood in tans because I was born in mountains and I live in the
mountains right now. I live in the Alps right now. For me, it’s not a problem. It’s just it feels
very very disrespectful if you know what I mean when you come to work in a particular place, and
they propose you just attend. So that’s me and my mom and there are a lot of tents, and there’s like
mountains, and I’m like one-year-old. I don’t know very very little tiny girl uh living in a tent. So
no problem at all. But we come to the second point which is overworking and hard work in general.
I didn’t expect that work can be that hard. I remember we were washing some like really really
heavy dishes. My back was dying. It was dead. I couldn’t stand or walk. And those were like
only six hours of work per day but hard hours, you know I felt so unfair over there. And the
thing is that on our description of this project it was mentioned that we are going to work 4-5
hours per day. In fact, we worked six hours per day. And I don’t know how that happened. We
were about to talk you know to our hosts and to like I don’t know solve this issue somehow. But
there were some other problems, that brought us actually to leave this project in general. Yeah.
All right. The third part which was clear for us in the beginning is about the place. So as I said
it was in the middle of nowhere and our free time we had absolutely, absolutely nothing to do like
swimming pool hammock maybe sometimes bicycles, but that’s it. There were no youngsters like it
usually happens in I don’t know all my Erasmus experience is about that my job in France is about
that like I go there because I’m so-so happy to meet people to have like parties with them and
play games with them and do whatever share our experience there was nothing like that because it
was just a fancy glamping me my husband and adult if I can say so well. So, I’m bringing you already
to the conclusion, but before I mentioned because I know I mentioned it I mentioned that we left
the project why that happened it was our family reason so we had to go to a hospital to our family
member in another region so we finally could say no to this project and find a reason to leave
it was a bad case and the guy who was actually running this glamping I had some not nice moments
with him let’s say, let’s call it this way. So, he was not a nice person. He was not a kind person.
He was saying bad things and yeah, but the woman was amazing. His wife and his kids, they were
amazing. Well, that was our experience. And now I want to bring you to the point if you still think
about work away. That was just my experience. Like what is important to know? First of all, please
set your goals. You need to understand why you’re going, where you’re going, what you’re going to
do over there. How to set your goals. Example, if you go for blogging, like you know, you’re a
blogger, or you want to run your blog, and you’re like, okay, I just want to do it because I want
to talk about it, or I want to like post pictures, then you choose a nice place. You know already
that this project will bring you nice pictures and nice videos. Okay. If your goal is your passion,
you have a hobby or maybe something early career you want to practice, then choose something you’re
going to practice with. And here you can see me me with a camera. It’s in Amsterdam. That’s how
I was exactly practicing my shooting skills, doing volunteering. And now it’s a really nice
line on my CV. And that where it should bring you. It should bring you somewhere. Yeah. Especially if
you are talking about your passion and practicing things. So you have a skill, you practice it and
that’s your project should be about. And we had such projects actually, but we were not chosen.
There were two candidates, two main candidates, us and some kind of guy. So it was a photo project
like a gallery like a famous photographer from province, and we really wanted to work for his
project and the accommodation was great everything was great, but we were not chosen unfortunately,
but I’m pretty sure our experience would be way better. Next reason which can bring you to
work away or something like that is making friends like you just want to communicate
with someone. You want some networking, and whatever. Then you need to choose probably an
association, and you know that there are already a lot of people you’re going to meet. So maybe
some events could be a nice idea. Also, your reason can be I just want to be out of the city
or out of my everyday life. Then you just look for a nice place out of the city, and you know, so
your expectations matter. If you feel like none of those go with your actual goals, just think about
some other programs like fellowships, internships, some grants for your projects or youth programs
or some other types of volunteering where again it will bring you somewhere. And my channel
is all about opportunities abroad. If you’re interested in those, don’t forget to subscribe for
sure and ring the bell. Yeah, then you have more notifications. And in any case, good luck with
your experience. Choose well and it’s going to be
Should I choose workaway or any other program?
And if I choose workaway, what mistakes can I avoid?
In this video, I am answering those two questions from my 10-year international program experience.
01:18 – Workaway advantages
04:15 – Workaway disadvantages (my bad experience with Workaway) / accommodation for volunteers
08:58 – Set your smart goals
11:51 – Other opportunities abroad: internships, fellowships, etc.
You can change your life by having fun abroad✨