With the beginning of my senior year of undergraduate studies approaching, I had decided to do something really valuable with my summer. I have studied abroad in numerous countries, and have a record bursting with service and volunteering. Thus, I began my quest to find a volunteering opportunity abroad the way any other sane-minded individual would; a google search. It wasn’t long before a free volunteering search engine had suggested that I apply to the International Humanity Foundation.
My involvement in the IHF happened entirely by chance. I found the foundation in a wide-sweeping search, researched the Foundation and immediately fell in-love with its cause and the varying opportunities they offered volunteers. I applied, completely willing to be placed in any of the IHF’s centers across Indonesia, Thailand and Kenya, and finally was offered a position at the center in Chiang Rai, Thailand.

My work as a volunteer in center has truly been life changing. The Chiang Rai center is unique to any of the IHF’s other centers in that it is a home for 13 children, all of whom are from Hilltribe villages. I came to Thailand expecting to teach English and interact with children who have had difficult childhoods, but what I have experience here has been so much more.

Living in center, sharing meals and playing cricket and surfing facebook with the kids has made me a family member, like an older sister, rather than a worker. I feel as if establishing real relationships and friendships with the children has made more of an impact on someone’s life than any other community service experience I have done.
Working with IHF in the community has contributed hugely to my professional and educational development. Witnessing the empowerment that comes from education, the realities of poverty, the multifaceted contributors to social marginalization, as well as understanding all factors of international developmental issues (i.e. lack of social systems, lack of infrastructure, social and economic inequality ect.) have given true insight and hands on experience into the issues pertaining to my studies of international relations.

Despite how long and tiring some days may be in-center, when I stop and consider all that I have accomplished I realize that my experience with IHF has been valuable beyond words. It has enforced my chosen educational track, and inspired me to pursue a more specific and focused trajectory in my graduate studies. I have grown as an individual and made incredible connections with the children and staff that I have been so honored to work with. I came to work for IHF expecting to do good in a community of under privileged children, and while I was none-the-less successful, it had never occurred that I would come out the experience being the one who changed the most.