Cross-Cultural Solutions has unlimited caregiving opportunities for volunteers to work side-by-side with local people and provide care for children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. The local organizations we work with lack resources and staff, and are especially grateful for volunteers’ daily support, personal attention, and care.
The simple actions of our volunteers are incredibly meaningful to the community. A volunteer’s support, affection, companionship, and interest in their well-being consistently have a positive impact on the populations we serve.
Volunteers become companions that energize and stimulate elderly community members who have been forgotten or are otherwise isolated by others. With infants and children, volunteers show love and affection that aids in their development and overall well-being. Volunteers make a meaningful impact on communities through their enthusiasm and compassion—this work helps to challenge local stereotypes of people with disabilities.
Find out more about our caregiving placements:
The Ongoing Effect of Volunteer Caregiving
Our caregiving placements involve many one-on-one interactions, but it’s the continuous access to our international volunteers that creates the positive, sustainable effect on communities. Beyond the time that one volunteer will spend in-country, the caregiving continues. As a volunteer, you are a link in a chain that connects you to all those people who have volunteered in the community before you, as well as those who will come after. Tools that CCS staff and volunteers have created ensure the effectiveness of our short-term volunteer work (e.g., log books documenting volunteer experiences and the placement guide), facilitate the process, and prepare you for your assigned placement.
Quotes about the Impact of Volunteers from our Partner Programs in Caregiving
Orphanage, Ghana
“Some of the children in public schools will now visit us to interact with the orphans and learn songs, rhymes, poems, and games that they've learned from the volunteers. To us, this is a huge impact— other children now realize that orphans have something to share, too.... Also, people in the community have begun volunteering to help at the orphanage.”
Center for the Elderly,
Peru
“CCS volunteers bring a special charm to our program. Knowing that people come from so far away to spend time with [the residents] makes them feel very special, because they have been abandoned by their own families and have been isolated for many years. [The volunteers] have a very positive effect on their self-esteem and their ability to cope with often harsh living conditions.”
Daycare Center for Children with Disabilities, China
“Our staff sees that there are others who care about the education of challenged kids, and this makes them feel confident and positive about their own work.”
