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Voluntering Overview
VOLUNTEERING WITH HINI
Volunteering for Hostelling International Northern Ireland from an international volunteers point of view
HINI always try to accommodate young people (and the not so young) in their volunteering efforts, as such if you are interested in coming to Northern Ireland and getting involved in the work that HINI do in thier hostels and in the volunteer projects we offer, then we would like to hear from you. We have a range of opportunties and take volunteers from all over the world, our main work is in hostels as wardens, receptionists etc. But we also run projects and are always looking for volunteers to help on these.
We currently have volunteers that stay a for a year, but also offer short term placements, 3-4 weeks, 3-4 months, we can try to accommodate you and your plans.
Two of the volunteers we had stay with us, from May 2010 - May 2011 were Tobias and Isaac, this is what they had to say.
TOBIAS
I came over from Germany in June 2010 and when I started volunteering for HINI I did not expect that this would be such a great experience for me. I did quite a lot of voluntary work in Germany but nothing ever fulfilled me and made me happy like volunteering for HINI. I´m so happy that I got this big opportunity. There is a big range of interesting work fields. For example we are organizing and running lots of projects with youth groups from all over Northern Ireland and even from abroad like Poland. The topics of the projects are very various like cultural diversity, cross community, tolerance etc. These projects take place in our hostels in Belfast, Bushmills, Newcastle, Armagh, White Park Bay and Ennsikillen.
Furthermore as a volunteer for HINI you learn how to run a hostel and during your time in the hostels you meet lots of people from all over the world like Australia, Germany, Spain, France, USA, Switzerland, Holland, Poland, Canada, Austria, Italy and so on. This is a great way to get to know new people and cultures. Of course all of my expenses during my volunteering work like food, travel expenses and accommodation are paid by HINI. But we don’t run just projects with youth. We also work together with disabled people as well as with elderly people. So it is the perfect way to improve my social competences what lots of companies today want to see on their employees. But volunteering for HINI doesn´t take place just in the hostels. We also provide a Belfast Dander what is basically a free walking tour to the most important and interesting places in Belfast as well as a pub crawl through 4 pubs in Belfast.
Tobias Hempler
(international volunteer for HINI)
ISSAC
Hi my name is Isaac, I’m 20 years old and I’m from Barcelona, Spain.
I am spending this year as an International Volunteer for Hostelling International Northern Ireland. I am working with another volunteer from Germany and the coordinator of volunteering from Hostelling International Northern Ireland.
Our job is really interesting because we work in different ways:
First of all our youth work, which is about joining lots of different people, from different religions, ethnics, zones, … in one project.
This job is really good because you realise about the difference in their minds, from when they arrive until they leave, they find friendships and they don’t care about cultural differences.
Another thing we do is helping in some hostels around Northern Ireland like in Newcastle, Enniskillen, Bushmills … that’s a really good way of travelling and visiting different parts of the country, we have to work but we also have our free time to do whatever we want.
We also run the information desk in Belfast Youth Hostel, which is about helping the costumers for their developing in Belfast, information about what they can need or visit.
The last thing we do is some tours, like “the Belfast dander” and “the Pub Crawl”, which are really interesting because we know more about Belfast and we meet lots of people who are travelling all around Northern Ireland.
Sincerely I’m spending a really good year here and I’m meeting lots of different people, like volunteers, local people and some travellers. I think is one the best thinks I’ve ever done.
Isaac Majos
(international Volunteer for HINI)