By Julia Pearlman

If you like the idea of volunteering in another country or part of the UK, you love the outdoors and want to "make the world a better place", there are a wide range of opportunities available to you.

By volunteering for organisations such as The National Trust, BTCV, Project Trust, European Voluntary Service, International Voluntary Service and Community Service Volunteers, you can to learn new skills, make friends, contribute to protecting the landscape and help bring communities together.

First you need to decide how long you want to spend on your volunteering experience. If you like the idea of getting away for a short burst of volunteering, the Water Recovery Group is looking for people interested in residential holidays to restore canals around the country.

Activities include restoring a lock chamber and vegetation clearance or excavation. You will also have the opportunity to train in skills such as bricklaying, surveying and even operating dumper trucks!

Project Trust

Project Trust needs overseas conservation volunteers aged between 17 and 19 who are looking for a challenging gap year adventure that will take them into a whole new set of cultures and communities.

The organisation founded in 1967 as an educational charity on the Hebridean Isle of Coll in North West Scotland and has so far sent 4,000 volunteers overseas.

Applicants are put through their paces with a five-day selection process at its Scottish headquarters. These start in August and run until February.

"Our ethos is all about living and becoming part of a community, being a young foreign person in a developing country and fully integrating into it," says Miriam Brown, desk officer for Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras.

"The five-day selection process gives us the opportunity to find out about what applicants are like and what they would be particularly good at. At the same time, volunteers can find out about Project Trust and the variety of projects we have."

Projects range from learning a language, outdoor activities, teaching, development work, medicine and working with children and people with disabilities. Past environmental projects have included volunteers in Mauritania working at a locust control centre and on a dairy programme.

Volunteers have to reach a target of £4,480 to fund the year. "We want volunteers to show their commitment by fundraising, not by asking family and friends," Miriam Brown says. "It's a challenge but they really buzz off it. We teach them how to fundraise and support them in any event they do, whether it be a battle of the bands or a fashion show."

Sarah Vant-Tyrell spent her year in Brazil: "I'd never been exposed to anything quite like it," she admits, "but if I wanted to settle into my new home I had to remain aware, while at the same time becoming hardened to some of the sights of a developing country like Brazil. It's hard not to feel like you're not doing enough, but you learn to appreciate how lucky you are and what you do have."

BTCV

Environmental charity, BTCV, is always looking for people to go on their conservation holidays.

Conservation holidays last from one to six weeks and take place in over 23 countries around the world, and in the UK. The cost varies from project to project.

Examples of projects include turtle monitoring in Thailand, Greece or Grenada; endangered primate surveys in India; footpath construction in Iceland and wetland management in Hungary.

Natural breaks last from two days to two weeks and take place at various locations across the UK. However, if you're more interested in getting out into more wild and isolated destinations, then action breaks, which take place over two weeks, might be more suitable.

Other opportunities

The International Voluntary Service is offering volunteers the chance to help at work camps for two to four weeks to assist disadvantaged communities. Projects include environmental conservation on beaches in Morocco; maintaining forests in Japan; picking up herbs for infusion production (local NGO product) in the Czech Republic and cleaning and marking the paths which lead to the top of the hill of the Trpanj municipality in Croatia.

The European Voluntary Service is offering 18-30 year-olds the opportunity to spend three weeks to 12 months in another European country on a project that will benefit the local community. The scheme is funded by the EC so all costs are paid (travel, insurance, accommodation and language tuition).

Read more about volunteering overseas.

See more residential opportunities in the UK.

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