I went on my first volunteering trip through i-to-i and it was nice to have a big official company behind me to offer advice and support before I went and gave my parents peace of mind to have an official company to contact if anything went wrong. It was also brilliant to have an in-country coordinator to meet us at the airport and always be there to help. But all in all it wasn't worth the money It was so over-priced it's unbelievable and whilst we were there we found out that less than a third of our fee actually went to the project we were working on. In future I would use i-to-i to find projects, but then I would go directly to the project and skip out the 'middle-man'. Don't waste your money with i-to-i, deal with the projects directly.
i-to-i TEFL
Hi All, I signed up to do the China Internship with i-to-i in August 2010 and was not unsuccessful in my interview. How their Chinese counterparts judge I will never know because they do not even provide feedback. I really don't understand. English is my first language I have worked in numerous organization speaking to COOs, CEOs and CFOs and I have a Bachelors degree in an Reputable Australian Universities - I think its a bunch of bollocks. There was no reason my application should have been rejected I completed the course requirements and online assessments well before it was due. I don’t think they are professional at all. I honestly believe I was not given a fair chance. Not worth wasting your money especially if you are Australian wanting to teach English overseas. I did the course as it was a requirement of the internship program. I think people should know that it is not right. How many other people have signed up only to be knocked back by a 'third party' and then still have to pay for the course? Its a scam to pay for the course with the hope of travelling to china. I would not recommend i-to-i to anyone. Thanks
Hi All, I signed up to do the China Internship with i-to-i in August 2010 and was not unsuccessful in my interview. How their Chinese counterparts judge I will never know because they do not even provide feedback. I really don't understand. English is my first language I have worked in numerous organization speaking to COOs, CEOs and CFOs and I have a Bachelors degree in an Reputable Australian Universities - I think its a bunch of bollocks. There was no reason my application should have been rejected I completed the course requirements and online assessments well before it was due. I don’t think they are professional at all. I honestly believe I was not given a fair chance. Not worth wasting your money especially if you are Australian wanting to teach English overseas. I did the course as it was a requirement of the internship program. I think people should know that it is not right. How many other people have signed up only to be knocked back by a 'third party' and then still have to pay for the course? Its a scam to pay for the course with the hope of travelling to china. I would not recommend i-to-i to anyone. Thanks
I spend 3 weeks in the district darjeeling in a little village called Makaibari for working with children.
The best of my trip to India was the life with my host family - so nothing, that hast to do with i-to-i.
The organisation itself, should give me orientation and offer me a kind of social work in Makaibari.
The transfer from the airport to my homestay was no problem but besides that, I didn´t have any idea of the village (Name & location), my accommodation itself or the different possibilities of work, because i-to-i didn´t inform me about all those things before departure.
So I was a bit surprised when my journey finally stopped in a small village, two hours away from darjeeling, when the name of the programm was called "community work in rural darjeeling".
Well, but that was not the acutal problem. My homestay was quite clean, but very very very simpel and I was schocked to have a shower out of a bucket, when i-to-i talked about warm water out of the faucet.
Well those were the things you can arrange with after a while, but then my first day "of work" came:
The local organisators were very friendly and anxious, but they couldn´t change the fact, that there was no work for me at all. Schools were closed (because of strikes or vaccation) or there were exams, so I wasn´t able to work with the kids, how I was told.
Without asking for my opinion and telling me about, what I have to expect, they send me with a local "doctor" to walk through the mountains, for visiting different villages to care for ill people.
Sounds very nice I think. But the trip took 5 hours, the humidity and the temperature were very high the paths very steep. And there was no work for me again because I only sat next to the "doctor" and just watched him.
I went with this doctor twice, but then I had enough, because I wasn´t used to that very different climate and saw no sense in this kind of "work". Well now, the organisators were baffled, because they didn´t have another option. They didn´t allow me to work in the tea gardens, because of the monsoon rain (I might become wet). That was ridicolous, because there was nothing else to do for me and when I walked with the doctor I also got wet.
Because the organisators couldn´t help me, I made my own plans. I started to work in the tea factory for one week. There I sorted tea with the women of the factory, but I was not needed there too. I was allowed to sort the tea, because, the women want me to have something to do.
In the last of the three weeks I went with the mother of my homestay family to her work to a local health care station, but all I had to do there, was to sit next to the nurses and watch their buisness.
So it´s a insolence that i-to-i didn´t inform me, that the possibilities of work were that restricted in the time of the monsson. So the stay there was very boring after a while, because in this small village nothing happens the whole day, it rained very often and darjeeling was 2 hours away.
The second point I want to mention is the money problem. My local organisators told me in confidence, how much money they and the homestay families get, for the supply of a volunteer and it was a last not even one thenth of the price I had to pay. Moreover my homestay family had to pay for my supply, because they got too less money and the people there are quite poor.
On their website i-to-i assures you that the remaining money(which has not to be invested in the organisation of your trip) of the price you pay will be send to the village or town you stay, but that is a lie. Only the manager of the regional tea factory got some money too(for whatever reason).
I know now, that i-to-i is a bold rip-off.
I cannot recommend i-to-i in any way. The local organisators were very friendly and it was not their fault, that the organisation and the preparation of my trip was that bad. The only thing I can recommend is Makaibari (the village were I lived) and the whole district Darjeeling, because the people are amazing and the landscape is great. But don´t use i-to-i for such a trip.
Good luck for your trip!
Travelled with i-to-i twice, and these are some of my earliest travel experiences.
In Kenya, I found the accomodation to be very poor, ie dirty, cold water, unreliable electricity etc, but put this down to the general living standards in Mombasa. The staff seemed supportive at orientation, but in reality, seemed to go back on their word alot, mostly due to lack of communication between them in the field, and head office in the UK.
My project was really good though, clean and good food and staff.
In Vietnam, I realised just how different I-to-I projects could be on the ground from what the website advertised, for example, a project that was supposed to be rural being in a reasonable sized city, and even info I was given in orientation was misleading, for example, I was told that I would be teaching english at my orphanage project, but when I arrived, it seemed nobody there spoke a word of English, and they weren't even expecting me, and therefore, we couldn't communicate what I should be doing, or could be doing, to actually help. Accomodation where I stayed was fine, hot water and one computer with internet and satellite tv etc, but I was alone there with a male housekeeper, which I would have thought I would be informed of before arrival, and he also did not speak english, which was frustrating. Orientation did not include even a basic Vietnamese language/culture session, and anytime I tried to ask for help with the language, the in-country i-to-i staff just wanted to practice their english. overall, I left feeling I did not received the support I paid for, and that I had not contributed in any worthwhile ways to the projects I worked on.
I would still recommend i-to-i, but I would not travel with them again, the core point being that what you get in-country is very different from what the main website advertises, and that standards can vary alot from country to country.
Comments
In spring of 2007 I went to Costa Rica to build houses with I-to-I. Everything went smoothly and i had no need to contact I-to-I because they just stuck me in a house with a lovely lady who took care of me. I figured out towards the end however, that this lady was losing money on me and that I-to-I was simply placing us to build houses not funding any of it. So all of my money was essentially going into the executives pocket. This was my positive experience. I am currently in China, I have been here almost 3 weeks with I-to-I and was supposed to be a teacher intern. However, I have been moving from hotel room to hotel room trying to find a placement, I have literally slept in 5 different beds the last 5 nights one of which never reached above 40 degrees f. I have been lied to over and over again and every part of the contract that we mutually signed has been broken. Why am I paying you 1300 dollars when I could easily come and visit China or teach here much cheaper. I will never book with them again, they don't communicate and are money hungry and couldn't care less about their clients or the poor people they are supposedly helping. NEVER GO I-TO-I.
Comments