Volunteering And Donating | Around the World "L"!

Give Me an Easy, Free Birthday Gift With a Big Impact!

Oct 062011

Give Me an Easy, Free Birthday Gift With a Big Impact!

Tomorrow is my 30th birthday!

Want to make me REALLY, REALLY happy with a free gift? Here’s what I most desire:

1. Show some love to my two websites, AroundTheWorldL.com and TeachingTraveling.com by: reading, commenting on, and reposting/sharing/emailing articles, “Liking” the Facebook pages (currently near 1,400 fans!) and using the “suggest to friends” button, “Stumbling” articles (if you’re advanced like that), and generally bringing as many eyes as possible to these 500+ articles I [...Read More!]

Scary Sandboarding Down Giant Sand Dunes in Peru

Great Tourist Attractions, Latin America, Transportation, Volunteering and Donating 54 Responses »

May 212011

Scary Sandboarding Down Giant Sand Dunes in Peru

Perhaps you’ve heard of snowboarding, and perhaps you’ve heard of surfboarding. Both activities are adrenaline-filled and frequently televised… but neither can match the feeling of sand in your underpants that you gain from a little activity known as SANDboarding.

Several summers ago, I lived in Peru and volunteer-taught with my Boston teacher friend, Gareth, in the fish factory town of Chimbote. We lived with the family that owned the school, and got along [...Read More!]

How to Run a Successful International Penpal Exchange

Blogging and Technology, Ghana: Month 3, International Education, Race and Travel, Volunteering and Donating, Youth Creating Change 19 Responses »

Dec 142010

So you dream of global understanding, connection, and communication. What better way to create this than to have students across the world write letters to one another?

Ahh, the romanticized International Penpal Exchange idea: so beautiful and so grand!

And yet, as those of us who have tried it often soon realize… so full of potential mayhem and chaos!

During the three months I volunteered in Sogakope, Ghana, I helped run the Youth Creating [...Read More!]

My New Second Website: TeachingTraveling.com

Blogging and Technology, International Education, Learning, Volunteering and Donating 10 Responses »

Oct 222010

The happiness of teaching and traveling…

I have just given birth again!

After the successful first year of this delightful, pudgy baby, AroundTheWorldL.com, passion has once again led to creation: my shiny new second site, TeachingTraveling.com!

Allow me to answer some preemptive Frequently Asked Questions about this birth:

Q: What is the difference between AroundTheWorldL.com and TeachingTraveling.com?

A: AroundtheWorldL.com is about me (and students with whom I work closely), following my journeys around the world [...Read More!]

Meaad's Article 2: The Giant Flood in Jeddah

ESL Student Life Stories, History, Volunteering and Donating 11 Responses »

Sep 122010

Article #14 in the ESL Student Life Story Project, by Meaad from Saudi Arabia, age 23.

“Are you OK?” we all asked each other.

“Do you know what happened to our friend’s house? Did it get damaged?”

“Did anyone in my cousin’s family die?”

“I have heard that it’s expected to rain tomorrow again, and I am afraid of what will happen!”

YCC Ghana's Genius Reading Club Program

Ghana Volunteering, International Education, Volunteering and Donating, Youth Creating Change 13 Responses »

Aug 192010

We have discussed where clothes you donate might end up, but what about the BOOKS you toss into the “Donation” bin?

Me, I only had a hazy idea of how my old tomes might be used. Did they find a second life as firewood? Toilet paper? Food storage? Sometimes I worried about my cast-off literature’s fate.

And thus it was with absolute joy, during the three months I volunteered in Ghana, that I [...Read More!]

How to Save Mad Money... and Get a New Wardrobe!

Budget Travel Secrets, Fashion, Pre-Trip Planning and Packing, USA, Volunteering and Donating 8 Responses »

Jul 162010

Yes, that IS a woman passed out in euphoric exhaustion on a four-foot-tall heap of clothing. Want to know why? Read on.

Saving money to do awesome things like travel is often a matter of making small sacrifices (or put more positively, “alterations”) in your budget that add up over the long term.

One such alteration that can save you thousands of dollars a year is this: instead of buying new clothes, hold [...Read More!]

Help Great Ghanaian Students Visit Britain!

Ghana Volunteering, International Education, My Beloved Former Students, Volunteering and Donating, Youth Creating Change 8 Responses »

Jun 132010

We need your help!

In exactly two months, an amazing group of Ghanaian students and teachers from Youth Creating Change of Ghana is scheduled to leave their county for the first time. For three weeks this August, these hard-working Ghanaians will study and present in the United Kingdom for the return half of a remarkable educational exchange. That is… if we can raise the funds!

“This Cross-Culture exchange is the best programme I [...Read More!]

My Interview About Ghana on Amateur Traveler Podcast!

Ghana Volunteering, Help Make This Site Famous, My Beloved Former Students, Volunteering and Donating, Youth Creating Change 4 Responses »

May 292010

Thrilling! My interview with Chris Christensen about volunteering in Ghana has just been published on Chris’s world-famous site, Amateur Traveler Podcast!

For the full interview homepage on Amateur Traveler, click here, my dear.

Or, if your finger is a tad lazy, the entire interview can be played right here, by clicking this button:

Amateur Traveler Episode 234 – Travel to Ghana

If this chat whets your appetite, there are over 90 articles on this very [...Read More!]

Thanks from Youth Creating Change of Ghana!

Ghana: Month 3, Volunteering and Donating, Youth Creating Change 1 Response »

Apr 062010

Thanks from Youth Creating Change of Ghana!

Today I swallowed my seventh and last post-exposure anti-Malaria Malarone pill. This means that it has been a full week since I flew out of West Africa and into Europe, tearfully leaving behind the wonderful Youth Creating Change of Ghana family.

But wait: nothing is ever left behind in this Internet age!

And thus I can give you the news, seven days after my Accra departure, that the donations we have collected through [...Read More!]