Volunteering in Korea

I've been either thinking way too much or way too little... I still can't decide ...

But what's constantly on my mind is... you guessed it... KOREA, I thought 2012 was the year of my comeback to Seoul but apparently it isn't :( and I will have to wait until 2013 to accomplish this... the good thing is I might spend a couple of months there (YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!), I'm super excited, sometimes is the only thing that helps me finish my day :/ 

If you are a regular reader here, you know I want to do some Volunteer work in Korea, not only to Travel but to help others :), and things seem to be working out in order for me (and my sister) to finally do this, you'll see about a year ago I started thinking about it and my online research started with no luck, all the information out there was for US Citizens or Canadians but that didn't stop me and the idea was still on my mind.

I considered WWOOF - World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms until I resently found out there's a change I might have to milk a cow, so.. NO! I'm not disgusted by the process per se, but I'm afraid of Cows and Horses and for a while I thought I was not going to make it, then I thought I could volunteer with The House of Sharing (read about it here) and so I sent them an email and they said that we could work something out once I arrive to Korea and that's how I "met" Shannon (I actually met her when I visited the House of Sharing in 2010) but I ended up adding her on FB and that's how I also read about KUMFA , this is the Korean Unwed Mother's Families' Association and you can do some Volunteer by Babysitting some of the Kids for a few hours or sometimes you can help when they organize fundraisers,etc., but this was another thing to do once you get there because obviously they don't offer rooms for you to stay there or anything...well just the satisfaction of helping others :)

You'll see, I'm not rich (I wish) so, I can not go for 6 months and just wonder around helping others just like that, so I was looking for something more..."stable". and a few weeks ago a friend of mine posted a link on facebook of an International Volunteers agency in Mexico (perfect timing), I contacted them and they have vacancies in Korea, you can stay a few weeks, 3-6 months or even a year and we are considering taking the 3 months plan and then stay another month to do some sightseeing and perhaps more volunteer work with the Halmonis, Kumfa or Plur! (Plur organizes volunteer work in Korea every weekend)

As you know, I've been saying I want to live in Korea at some point of my life, and I feel like spending 4 months there will help me decide if it's really something I want or if it will make me realize that's just not the place for me. Now that I think about it I'm not sure if those 4 months will be enough to do what I want to do, besides the Volunteer work here and there, I also want to travel to a bunch of places in Korea and visit some of the people I've met since 2010 (Online and Offline) and that includes to pay a visit to my friend Jeff who will be openning a Churreria in Busan :) and visit his Brother's recently-open restaurant.... Oh yea and I would also like to visit the cabin of the TBS show where once a month I have a little space to talk about Mexico :), so I'm not sure if those 4 months will be enough :S but I hope so!!!

If you want more information on Volunteer work in Korea you can go ahead and click on all the links posted all over this post :$.

If you are MEXICAN this is the link you want to check out :)

Readers, if you know of any other way to do Volunteer work in Korea, please let me know :) by leaving a comment, tweeting me (@Gisela_Verdin) or sent me an email.

-Gisela V.