OFFER: Volunteer Abroad in West Africa

[Lets Get Free]

Hey Fellow SDNers,

I wanted to share a link to the website of a non-profit group based out of Paris, France, and Lome, Togo, who organized an internship for me at the University Hospital of Lome for 6 months of last year, where I worked as a phlebotomist and shadowed doctors in the department of neurology full time, and an experience that dramatically expanded my understanding of health, the health profession, and why I personally want to be a doctor:

www.as-oisou.com

I'm currently working as a united states coordinator for other people who would like to volunteer or do a small project. We're making an english version of the site currently, so hopefully you can translate this page in your browser (or know some french). Google chrome translates it pretty good for me.

In addition to working in the hospital, shadowing, working in the hospital labs running tests, and spending a month observing surgeries, I was also able to participate on excursions by other volunteers from France who designed, financed, and carried-out their own community-service projects with the help of this organization (AS-OISOU). The organization is mostly concerned with projects benefitting education and infrastructure. One project I worked on was refurbishing of a village primary school that lasted about 2 weeks and included playing games with children. Another was the planting of about 500 fruit trees at a school in another village, took a little more than a week.

It was really a great experience for me to see a rich culture with many differences of my own, try new foods, and learn to speak French and the local language Ewe at least conversationally. Feel free to message me or email if you have any questions!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[remonde]

How much are these trips? Do we have to fund our own travel fares/lodging? I would love to pursue this opportunity as I've been looking for one like this for a while; however, costs of the trip are a huge determinant factor in my case :-/

 

[Lets Get Free]

Participants are required to pay their own airfare, visa, immunizations, and health insurance. Also required is a donation to the non-profit for either rent while you stay there or to finance the project you may do. Some people who did the renovation or re-forestation projects tend to donate $500 or so each to finance the project.

For my six month internship, I paid $600 total for the rent and the internship, which is less than I pay for rent for 1 month here in Los Angeles.

Airfare was definitely the biggest part of the expenses. Round trip airfare from L.A. to Paris was $1000 and round-trip Paris to Lome, Togo was another $1000. Airfare from other parts of the country would be cheaper.

For food and travel, I went to Ghana a couple times and went to the mountains in the north of Togo a few times, and took a taxi to and from the hospital every day, ended up being another $1000 for the six months.

Visa and immunizations were about $100. Anti malarial pills I bought in the hospital there in Togo where I was working and only cost me about $40.

All in all thats about $4000 spent over 6 months. I rationalized these expenses by comparing my budget if I would have stayed here and worked in that time, as I had already graduated, and the perceived benefit of getting hands-on clinical experience necessary for deciding if medicine was really for me. I found that medicine excites me and is what I want to continue studying for sure... so my investment paid off.

For people that want to do just a two-to-three week project, the relative expenses to time actually spent there will be much more, but I believe you can get a similar understanding of the social and political factors affecting health and access to health-care world-wide, as well as immerse yourself in a fascinating culture. You could extend your stay and do some site-seeing in the region as well, or I know one American girl who spent about a month teaching English in italy before coming to Togo to teach for a month, then went back to Italy for another month before coming back to the states.

With this group I really had the opportunity to organize the details of my own trip and that played a big role in my overall satisfaction with what I got out of the experience.

 

[Nahla]

I'm probably gonna get flamed for this...but FWIW

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the point in spending so much money to travel to remote country to do these volunteer gigs. Yeah they're nice, you get to see the world etc but depending on where you live and the community you're in, they probably need as much help as they can get. I'm not saying that these country and its people doesn't need your help, but spending all that money...seems like your doing it wrong.

But hey, if that's you wanna do by all mean it's your choice.

 

[Lets Get Free]

Yeah I agree with you. To be honest I can't even claim to have helped other people much, if at all, during my time abroad. It really was an experience for myself, as I had wanted to see africa since I was young and was curious about tropical medicine the past few years.

For me, I had tried to volunteer at my city hospitals since high school but was always put on waiting lists, and didn't know any doctors personally who would take me on and let me shadow. I really wanted clinical exposure, more than the office tech job I had found at an ophthalmologist's office, and this experience let me see surgery, let me draw blood, taught me many of the laboratory tests, and health issues common to any big hospital.

I'm probably gonna get flamed for this...but FWIW

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the point in spending so much money to travel to remote country to do these volunteer gigs. Yeah they're nice, you get to see the world etc but depending on where you live and the community you're in, they probably need as much help as they can get. I'm not saying that these country and its people doesn't need your help, but spending all that money...seems like your doing it wrong.

But hey, if that's you wanna do by all mean it's your choice.

 

[learningone]

Could please you clarify about accommodation expenses and conditions related to this program?

 

[Lets Get Free]

Could please you clarify about accommodation expenses and conditions related to this program?

It really depends on what you want to do, the group will tailor a project around your interests and how much funds you can raise if you want to actually build something, renovate a school, plant trees, etc.

For my six-month internship I paid $600 to the non-profit group for letting me board with them and organizing the internship. I know 3 guys who went and paid $500 each, most of which to construction supplies for their school renovation project, with some going to overhead costs, throwing a party for the villagers, etc.