Make a World of Difference—Volunteer with AFS India

Helping to bring the people of the world together is exciting, interesting, and rewarding work. For more than 50 years AFS Volunteers in the world have been building bridges of intercultural understanding and changing the way the world works.

AFS, as a truly volunteer-based organization, has always had a strong commitment to the approximately 100 volunteers in India and more than 30,000 volunteers worldwide.

There are many ways you can help AFS with your volunteer time!

• How to become a Volunteer. Learn about the AFS India volunteer application and registration process.

Different Types of volunteers

Long term volunteers

• Person who is dedicated to a cause or a group
• Strong sense of affiliation
• Emotional investment
• Sense of personal worth and identity gained from participation
• Self-recruitment because of existing commitment to the cause
• Growth from within, increasing connection over time
• Close connection with existing group of volunteers
• Shape job, time and energies to whatever is necessary to make the cause succeed
• Generalist, willing to do whatever type of work is required
• Motivation: matter of achievement and affiliation
• Recognition: best expressed as greater involvement or advancement in the cause of the organization

Short term volunteers

• General interest in organization or cause
• Involvement in the organization is not central in his/her life
• Actively recruited through participation in specific events or asked by a friend to volunteer
• May want a well-defined job of limited duration
• Specialist, willing/able to perform one kind of work
• Recognition of personal achievement, not status within the group
• Go from organization to organization
• Involved in one-off events

Episodic volunteers

It is important for our organization to keep the maximum amount of volunteers interested in working and contributing in every way they can for AFS. There are several ways to achieve this but one of the most successful ways not only to keep the interest, but also to create bonds and to call the attention of new people to become volunteers is to have Local Chapter events.

This event can go from the regular chapter meetings to an international food festival (with the help of your returnees and exchange students). The idea of this kind of events is to let the volunteers know that there is more than work in AFS, that we are a big family and as so we can also chill down and have a good time together. These events also give additional value to the experience of the exchange students who will be living in India, and can also be a great way to get new volunteers (generally people who come as guests or friends of the volunteers and participants).

The nature of the event is to be determined by the chapter volunteers and the nature of the chapter, adapted to your culture and the way your environment works. Food festivals, art expositions, photography contests, chapter’s birthday or any other kind of activity can become an interesting event that will surely bring happy moments to the chapter and that could become part of a tradition.

If you have any questions, please contact our Volunteer Coordinator at our National Office or send an email at divya.arora@afs.org