Extended World Travel

Posts Tagged ‘Volunteer’

When you ask the question – Why travel? – you can get as many answers as there are people. We have some very close friends, the Dalmin family – Anna and Sven and the kids Efraim, Johannes and Tilja, and they have their special story. They are Swedish as well, but spend their life in two different places – Sweden and Romania. When we had them visiting a while ago, we took the opportunity to ask them about how they ended up in Romania of all places and how their life took the direction it took.

Anna tells us: “In the nineties, an older lady showed us a film from a village in Romania where the people suffered greatly from lack of most of the essentials. She had been in her seventies when she went there herself to contribute with whatever she could. As we, at that time, shared everyday problems as well as joy together with eight Swedish teenagers with whom we also studied the Bible, we saw this as a great opportunity to take our studies one step further and not only read but also to practice the love of God in reality”

So, she, Sven and the teenagers collected clothes, money, food, kitchenware, and lots of other things they assumed families and orphanages would need. They then rented some space with a charity organization which was going to Romania and flew there themselves, all ten of them.

Finally there, they handed out the things to orphanages as well as to children living in the streets. “When we gave out food to the street children, it was terribly difficult to experience how hungry they really where” Anna says, and continues: “but maybe more important than handing out food, or at least as important I think it was to spend time together with the abandoned children. We spent lots of time with these unwanted children who took neither love nor care for granted. But in all their poverty, they were so talented and they taught us so much about love and had so much to share. They really gave us well fed and loved people so much to learn from”.

This first time, they stayed for 10 days and one of the Swedish teenagers said to Anna: “I felt like I did more good in these 10 days than I’ve done in my whole life”!

They continued to go to Romania, “instead of going on vacation” to help out and to spend more time together with the children at the orphanages. During their visits there, they discovered that Romania has such a fantastic countryside and they fell in love with it so much they wanted to move there. They especially appreciated the simple lifestyle that people had. People still did, and still do, use horses and oxen in their farming for example. And that’s what they also wanted. So they got themselves this piece of land where they built their own house, and since they didn’t even have a road, they had to take everything there by real horse power. So, now they spend 6 months every year there, living mainly on self sufficiency and without either telephone or internet. They have shared a lot about their life there with us, and I must say it really sounds fantastic.

It is possible to go and stay with them and enjoy living a more natural and peaceful life for a while. You then can participate in the everyday activities and also have the opportunity to experience Romania and the people in a very genuine way. At the moment, they mainly offer these stays to young adventurous boys/men between 13 and 25, so if you are one, or know of one, we can really recommend you to contact them. They just made their webpage: www.ivildmarken.se. It’s only in Swedish at this stage but will soon be in English as well, and even if you don’t speak the language, you can get a lot from just the pictures so check it out.

So, as you can see, whatever answer you have to -Why travel? – whatever reason you have for wanting to go out into the world, you never know where the road will actually take you in the end!

For a bit more about Volunteering you can click here

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I found this video http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8299780.stm which made me start thinking, again, about volunteering. Just imagine how much there is out there in the world (or around where we live for that matter) that would be at least a tiny bit better if we gave it some of our time. I guess this young man has many many changed lives “on his conscience”.

Of course you don’t have to start your own school, or some other huge project of your own (well, this was actually a very small project from the beginning).

There are plenty of volunteering organizations which you just can join and be part of a movement that gives the world a nudge in a positive direction.

If you want to get an idea of what there is to choose from, here’s a volunteering site that has loads of great information:www.oneworld365.org

Also, looking into this things really make you appreciate and being grateful for what you have, doesn’t it? At least it’s that way for me.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.
Mother Teresa

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Creating money to travel can be done in many different ways.

You can sell something you are ready to give up which will then give you the opportunity to do something else or new with your life. Or, you can take on some extra work or find someone who rents your home. Or your main focus may be on saving money by lowering your costs for some time while having your travel dream as a motivating carrot.

The ways to increase your travel budget are many and depends on your personality and personal circumstances. Have a look at www.extendedworldtravel.com/travel-and-money

Creating money to go traveling is one thing. Creating money for an independent lifestyle, where you can go traveling whenever and however long time you want to is something else.

There are several profitable and relatively easy ways to set up a business which gives you an income to rely on while you are on the road (or at home for that matter). Something we ourselves as well as lots of other people who are interested in independent living have discovered is Affiliate Marketing.

This is actually an ancient way of doing business, “nothing new under the sun” as they say. The basic idea with Affiliate Marketing is to get paid a commission if someone buys a product or service on your recommendation.

The new and exciting thing is that now it can all be done over the Internet. It can be automated and it can offer a very high percentage in commission. You can help promote all kind of products, from people from all over the world, to other people all over the world 24/7.

And you don’t even have to be in the “office” to make money. To do this, you don’t have to be a computer genius, some basic computer skills is totally enough.

This can be really fun, as well as extremely profitable. It’s perfect for working from anywhere in the world as it is all automated so you don’t have to sit in front of the computer all the time. You actually earn money while you sleep, or lay on the beach. Or why not use your “free” time to do volunteering and help other people somewhere in the world.

There are two very good books which are voted “best in their field” where you can learn everything imaginable about affiliate marketing and starting your internet business.

One is written by two guys: www.WhoLovesMoney.com

The other one by a woman: www.TheSuperAffiliateHandbook.com

Take your pick! We believe they both can be of excellent help to start your independent online business.

P.S
FYI: Yes, these two books are affiliate products! If you by chance find this interesting, you click on the links and decide to go ahead with pursuing this kind of lifestyle and way of making a living by buying one of these products, we will eventually get paid.

Important to remember though is that this does not affect the product or the price in any way for the buyer. It is just the author’s way of expressing their gratitude to us for our help to tell people about their product. For this help they are willing to share their revenue with us which is of course very nice of them.

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In a recent post, we told you about our visitor, Tilo, from Brazil. He was staying with us for some time to get a chance to practise his Swedish (his mother is Swedish). Tilo and his family have this fantastic place “Sempre Verde” (which means “always green”), some 90 km from Recife, Brazil. It’s situated on the edge of the Rainforest with a tropical climate.

You can visit this beautiful, ecological place as a paying guest and also as a Volunteer. As a Volunteer you stay at their place and then help the farmers in the area in different ways.

Malin, the mother, has started an Environment and Handicraft School for kids and young people in the area. As a Volunteer you participate in the work in this school as well.

You can read more about it at: www.sempreverde.tur.br

So, if you’re interesting in traveling and giving some of your time and energy at the same time, here’s a great opportunity to do this.You can read more about it in the Volunteering section.

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop”
Mother Teresa

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