Alternative Break - Difference Between Alternative Breaks and "Voluntourism"

Difference Between Alternative Breaks and "Voluntourism"

“Voluntourism" is the integrated combination of voluntary service to a destination with the traditional elements of travel and tourism - arts, culture, geography, history, and recreation - while in the destination. (cite - voluntourism.org) Volunteer vacations are not alternative breaks because participants arrive as individuals with no prior preparation with educational components or group building.

Alternative breaks typically involve college students from the same institution, while most groups going on volunteer vacations will meet for the first time when they arrive in the location of the trip.

Alternative break groups meet and prepare for their experience up to six months in advance of their departure. During this preparation period there is an emphasis on learning about the social issues addressed during the trip, learning about the community, becoming oriented with the mission and values of the organization, training for any skills they may need while on the trip, and team building. Some groups even do relevant service in their college communities prior to departure.

Read more about this topic:  Alternative Break

Famous quotes containing the words difference between, difference, alternative and/or breaks:

    Only truthful hands write true poems. I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake and a poem.
    Paul Celan [Paul Antschel] (1920–1970)

    There is all the difference in the world between the criminal’s avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedient’s taking the law into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

    No alternative to the
    one-man path.
    Denise Levertov (b. 1923)

    The important thing about travel in foreign lands is that it breaks the speech habits and makes you blab less, and breaks the habitual space-feeling because of different village plans and different landscapes. It is less important that there are different mores, for you counteract these with your own reaction- formations.
    Paul Goodman (1911–1972)