Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020 |

# Volunteering!! Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea / Tahiti & French Polynesia
softgreyrain 10:40 UTC 19 Apr 2007 | Hey all!! I've just posted a similar message concerning Nepal, but I was wondering if anyone knew of volunteer organizations in Tahiti?? I'm very interested in doing some volunteering abroad after i graduate. My preference would probably be to work with children. I feel like there must be something, but so far I've had no luck with Google etc. Help me out? much love gen |
ejpiii 06:13 UTC 24 Apr 2007 | Seriously, did you try in french? There are plenty of things like that through all the Societies, though they are concentrated on tahiti itself. But virtually all in french as far as I know. Might be a few in polynesian dialects too. Ed | 1
matsumner 21:17 UTC 25 Apr 2007 | Not sure about the volunteering - will try to find out. But ejpii is right - you'll definitely need to speak some french. Did you use google.fr, or google.com? Try using french search terms too. Good luck! | 2
softgreyrain 04:34 UTC 01 May 2007 | oh my god, thanks so much! I had no idea they spoke french there- i'm nearly fluent. does happy dance | 3
silvanocat 06:30 UTC 01 May 2007 | <blockquote>Quote <hr>I had no idea they spoke french there<hr></blockquote> But you want to volunteer there, why? | 4
ejpiii 10:55 UTC 01 May 2007 | I bet its the same reason you and I wanna go back there, darlin'!!! Ed | 5
softgreyrain 11:56 UTC 01 May 2007 | hahaha- it just sort of interests me. i'd only just started researching it when i posted that. | 6
ejpiii 12:01 UTC 06 May 2007 | So what did you find out? FWIW I have had some luck doing what I call transliteration. I don't speak much French at all, but what I have done for some folks in FP is taken their badly written english guides, websites etc and "cleaned them up" into more standard english usage. My "pay" has been in the form of free stays, free flights etc. With some decent french, you might be able to do much, much better? And the place is utterly gorgeous and the people the nicest in the world. Ed | 7
bubbak 19:32 UTC 24 May 2007 | Posts about volunteering seldom mention what specific skills the poster has. Would you just be an extra pair of hands? In places with cheap labor costs, this is no great bonus, and an organization would not want to necessarily go through the hassle of training you and showing you around (while they have other things to do), and letting you learn local practices and customs, unless you will be there a long, long time. Even volunteering back home would usually entail a regular time commitment. Organizations are usually most in need of money, and, secondarily, very specific skills in people with local language skills. Working with children is a noble objective, but unless you have medical skills I do not know what dabbling in a bit of volunteering while you travel is practical. You might try to find local NGOs in advance. | 8