Retirees

Extremely realistic. In fact, a growing number of volunteer schemes are removing the upper age limits (though they maintain the lower age limits of 18 or 21).

As long as you’re healthy – and yes, that does seem to be a requirement in most if not all cases – finding volunteer work in your 60s, 70s and beyond is becoming easier every day.

Senior volunteers as a group have different needs and aspirations than 20-year-olds, so if you’re an aspiring volunteer, you should keep these in mind when you search for your placement.

• How strenuous is the work? Will I be able to handle it? If it involves carrying heavy loads or climbing steep hills, make sure you’ve in great physical shape.
• Can I easily get medical care? Bones break and emergencies arise. You should be able to get to a medical facility in reasonable time.
• How well am I insured? If you don’t have private medical or travel insurance, get some. If your health is less than optimal, you may have to rely on your own national health insurance, or on the project’s insurance if it provides it. Accidents or repatriation can be excruciatingly expensive so I wouldn’t consider a volunteering stint without some solid insurance.
• How will my skills be used as an international volunteer? After a lifetime of work, you may have developed some pretty extraordinary skills. While most people can wield a hammer, not everyone can build a website, design a road or wire a house for electricity. See if you can match your life of experience with local needs.
• What are my goals at this stage of life? Your goals should match your posting. If you’ve developed a strong commitment to the environment, make sure your organization is green. Do you want to learn a new skill? Work with young people? Make new friends? Leave a legacy? Feel productive? These should all be foremost in your thinking.
• What challenges am I facing and how can they be overcome? Do you have a physical or mental disability, phobias, allergies, financial issues or other challenges? Make sure you identify them early on and resolve them.
• Can I talk to someone? Find someone who has volunteered in your scheme through the organization. Don’t even think of losing yourself somewhere in the world without first speaking to a returning senior volunteer. What the brochures and websites say may have little bearing on conditions on the ground.
• How does my family feel about it? If they’re supportive, that’s great. All you’ll have to worry about is keeping in touch while you’re away. If not, you’ll have to start working on them soon – senior volunteering has its own challenges and you don’t need to carry guilt from home. Try to resolve issues before you go and bring your family into your decision as early as you can.

Volunteering is usually a two-step process: first, the idea appears, and then something triggers the action. This can be anything – a returning friend, a request from someone, information from another source.

Once you’ve decided to take the plunge and find a place that provides opportunities for volunteering abroad for older adults, you need to determine what kind of volunteering you want to do, where you want to go, how long you can go, and how much money you can spend. You also need to carefully consider which organization to join forces with: One whose volunteer travel programs are truly helping the people, communities or causes that are dear to you, and one that is ethical.

• What exactly do you want to do? Some women long to work with other women, others want to save the rainforests, and still others want to preserve some nearly-forgotten artifact of history. Decide what is most important to you and make that your starting point — volunteering for a cause you don’t believe in or aren’t passionate about won’t help anyone.
• Where do you want to go? This is a travel site, after all. If part of your desire to volunteer overseas is to see more of the world, then make sure you are going to a country that you want to visit or experience more fully. (But remember, this is volunteer work, not a vacation).
• How long are you going? Short-term volunteer projects, or “voluntourism,” have become more and more popular over the years. Many outfits send volunteers for a week, 10 days or two weeks to serve in the field. While I won’t make a blanket judgement that there is no use for these kinds of trips, I do highly recommend volunteering for longer stretches of time because sometimes short-term missions can do more harm than good — taking away jobs from locals, coming at a high cost to host organizations and sometimes causing long-term grief to children in poverty who form bonds with volunteers only to watch them leave. The good news is that as a senior, you probably have skills that many voluntarists — college grads taking a gap year — haven’t had the opportunity to develop. So, you can step into a role for a month and do an excellent job from the get-go. However, the longer you volunteer, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to make the lasting difference you want to make without the unintended consequences.