Good Hope Volunteers plays a key role in international volunteering

Good Hope Volunteers, based in Cape Town, is an NGO volunteering association that focuses on repairing social inequalities and protecting the environment. They are leaders in the international volunteering field who are trying to repair the damage that Africa’s complicated history has burdened the continent with. They work with over 40 different organizations throughout southern Africa and have volunteers from all over the world.

With an emphasis on social and environmental volunteering, Good Hope Volunteers has projects in each of the following categories:

• Social volunteering, working with vulnerable communities throughout southern Africa in order to lessen the gaping breach of inequality in society
• Conservation volunteering, working with animals, especially endangered species, in game reserves
• Medical volunteering, helping develop the public health system and working directly with patients in a clinic
• Farm stays, working at a small farm to better understand sustainability and the farming process
• Voluntourism, traveling around southern Africa while also spending time at volunteer organizations that are trying to make a difference

Along with the aforementioned projects, Good Hope Volunteers also offers long-term volunteering programs that last between 4 months and a year. For all of their programs, they provide their volunteers with accommodations and vet all of the places they are sending people to, in order to make sure they are safe. For most of their projects, Good Hope Volunteers requires volunteers to be at least 18 years of age, but besides this qualification, they attract volunteers of all ages and from all over.

Southern Africa relies on the NGOs that have established themselves in the region to step in where the government has failed to do so. Good Hope Volunteers works with a number of these organizations and assists them with projects by sending volunteers to help. The people at Good Hope Volunteers make a point to only associate themselves with projects that are inclusive of all beliefs, people, and ideas, and they do not assist organizations with their projects if they do not share the same ideology.

Through their mission of “openness, transparency, inclusivity, equality, and tolerance” Good Hope Volunteers are becoming leaders in the field of international volunteering.