Program Locations
VISIONS teen community service program locations range from Alaska to the Caribbean, Central and South America to Cambodia and Ghana. We plan volunteer projects in collaboration with local partners and return to program locations seasonally. The links forged are loyalties that translate into summer programs of depth and quality.
Teen volunteers accomplish impressive community service, learning skills such as adobe building and masonry from local maestros and sophisticated carpentry from staff carpenters. VISIONS teens (and pre-teens) engage artisans, farmers, health workers, local development nonprofits, and more. Volunteer service work builds cultural bridges that last long after the summer program ends. Students are temporary community members, not tourists. They share meals, stories and tools alike with our hosts, in some summer program locations actively engaging foreign language skills with native speakers during and after work and on weekends. VISIONS teen volunteers come to know the people whose lives they impact.
While each community service program location is distinct, all have core elements that are uniquely VISIONS: meaningful service in collaboration with host communities, immersion in community life, exploration and adventure.
Max Savishinsky, Program Director
Latin America & Caribbean
Council on International Experiental Exchange
Teen Community Service Locations
English Speaking Volunteer Opportunities
Alaska
JUNE 28 - JULY 26 (4 WEEKS)
The largest state with a landmass one-fifth the contiguous United States has half the world's active volcanoes and more than half the planet's glaciers. Untouched wilderness stretching to the horizon; mountains not viewed so much as experienced; magnificent wild creatures. Because the Alaska sun never truly sets in July, the deep night skies stay like early evening dusk.
Montana
JUNE 28 - JULY 25 (4 WEEKS)
AUGUST 2 - AUGUST 22 (3 WEEKS)
America's fourth largest state is home to less than one million people. Montana is vast prairies and range lands, golden grain fields and wildernesses abundant with timber, water, and wildlife. Spectacular sunsets are daily occurrences. Montana also is home to seven Plains Indian reservations, each a semi-sovereign nation with distinctive histories.
Mississippi
JUNE 28 - JULY 25 (4 WEEKS)
Since 2006 in partnerships with the North Gulfport Land Trust, Audubon Mississippi, and Turkey Creek Community Initiatives VISIONS participants have accomplished impressive service. This includes construction of a 600 sq. ft. outdoor environmental classroom; fishing decks and a 50' arched wooden walking bridge over a Turkey Creek tributary that eases access to community.
Ghana
June 28 - July 25 (4 WEEKS)
Ethnic backgrounds, languages (more than 70), topography, and general ways of life are as diverse and colorful as the ceremonial textiles that are so important in Ghanaian culture. Europeans inhabited Ghana before any other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Drawn by gold, and later by the slave trade, foreigners began their colonial claims in 1482, and the country eventually was ruled by Britain.
British Virgin Islands
June 28 – July 25
August 2 - August 22
Islands rising up out of crystal clear blue waters. Mountain peaks touching trade wind clouds. Crescent-shaped white sand beaches stretching endlessly, startling the eye. A proud Afro-Caribbean heritage alive in a culture with all the flavor of the local fruit trees and all the rainbow variety of the fish swimming offshore.
Dominica
July 9 - August 5
Dominica is hard core service work in a West Indies country. The Nature Island of the Caribbean is one of the purest of paradises, relatively untouched by tourist hordes. Nearly two-thirds of English-speaking Dominica is undeveloped. Its 365 rivers and streams are mostly usable by boats no larger than canoes. So abundant is fresh water that Dominica exports it to neighboring islands.
Cambodia
June 28 - July 26 (4 WEEKS)
Cambodia is on the rise globally with booming commerce and foreign investment. It also is a center for international development with over 3,000 officially registered non-governmental agencies within its borders. Nestled between Thailand, Vietnam and Laos, with nearly 15 million people, Cambodia suffered more than its fair share of war and trauma during the 20th century.
French Speaking Volunteer Opportunity
Guadeloupe
June 28 - July 25 (4 weeks)
In the French West Indies where French is spoken with a musical island lilt and Creole is a second mother tongue, Guadeloupe is comprised of nine inhabited islands, two very large and seven relatively small. It has seen Spanish, English, and French Colonial settlers and the importation of West Africa slaves and indentured servants from Asian India. All brought traditions that have blended over centuries into a cultural complexity experienced in a local cuisine that combines French sauces, curry spices and fresh seafood.
Spanish Speaking Volunteer Opportunities
Dominican Republic
June 28 - July 25 (4 weeks)
The island nation of the Dominican Republic is one of the most culturally vibrant and historically rich countries in the Americas. The warmth and resilience of Dominicans have charmed and inspired VISIONS participants since 1991. VISIONS's history in the communities where we live is one of mutual respect, deep friendships and enduring partnerships such as with the Sabana Perdida Lions Club with whom we collaborate every summer.
Nicaragua
June 28 - July 25 (4 weeks)
August 2 - 22 (3 weeks)
Well past the political turbulence of three decades ago, Nicaragua has become one of the safest of Central American destinations. Arguably, it has the most breathtaking landscapes in all of Central America. Nicaragua is second only to Haiti as one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. It is the least densely populated yet physically the largest in Central America.
Ecuador & Galapagos
JUNE 28 - July 25
Mitad del Mundo is a land of extraordinary contrasts where wood-burning stoves, thatched roof dwellings and cell phones co-exist. Where the planet's rarest species live on an isolate of islands 600 miles off the coast, drawing scientists and tourists from around the globe. Where the fishing and farming activities of growing numbers of Ecuadorians living on the Galapagos threaten the very existence of this extraordinary eco-system.
Peru
JUNE 28 - JULY 26 (4 WEEKS)
AUGUST 1 - AUGUST 21 (3 WEEKS)
Peru claims 84 of the world's 103 known ecological zones and 28 different climates, placing it among the five countries with the greatest biological diversity in the world. Stretching along its Pacific Coast is a continuous coastal desert; along its eastern boundary lies within the lush Amazon Basin. In the southern central part of the country, Andean peaks rise to their most majestic height in the heart of Peru's interior in which lies our home base of Urubamba (population 8,000).
Middle School Volunteer Opportunities
Island Passage, Virgin Gorda
July 5 - 26
Virgin Gorda is a small, quiet, closely knit island community. Our home base will be St. Mary's School, long familiar to VISIONS. The roomy space is atop a hill on the north coast, and it boasts the best breezes on Virgin Gorda. From our back door we can see down to the ocean below and hear the waves.
Northern Passage, Mont.
JUNE 28 - July 18
The Northern Cheyenne Reservation in southeast Montana has been home to VISIONS groups off and on since 1992. We live together in the Head Start school in Lame Deer, the central town on the reservation. We accomplish projects in Lame Deer and also in Birney Village, a tiny enclave of 50 families on the Tongue River.