2014, Africa, By Year, Disaster Relief / Volunteerism, Volunteer in Liberia, Where In The World
by Candy Treft

Volunteering In Liberia – The ‘To Do’ List

Volunteering in Liberia with Cross Cultural Care

As you probably already read, I am going to volunteer in Liberia.  I plan to bring you along with me; virtually and give you a ‘feet on the ground’ accounting of the entire process. In this post, I’m going to share with you my current “To-Do” list.

“Cross Cultural Care (C3) is an international non government organization (NGO) that pairs western health care providers with medical staff in areas of the developing world to assist with medical training and health capacity building.

Cross Cultural Care (C3) was founded by Dr. Robert Montana, an American Emergency Medicine physician who decided to create such a program while volunteering in North India.”  – http://www.cross-culturalcare.org/about/

Along with volunteering, I plan to bring to you; the reader, an inside peek at this volunteer opportunity.  With emphasis on the people served, the cultural differences and the impact that Cross Cultural Care is providing to the communities of Grand Cape Mount, Liberia.  I am excited to have this opportunity to utilize my nursing skills to assist Dr Montana in his vision to provide training, mentoring, and growth of skills as a strategy towards lasting change and improved healthcare access for the communities served by St Timothy Hospital.

There will be much more information to come as I share with you the entire process to give you a “Feet on the Ground” perspective.

On My To-Do List

  • Passport Renewal – My nearly-full Passport was reaching expiration so off it went to the US Passport Processing Center for a renewal.  It expires in May so this wasn’t an optional thing to get completed.  I’ve sent it through express mail so that hopefully I’ll get it with plenty of time to spare for obtaining my Visa for Liberia.
  • Book Flight – Although C3 does refund most of my airfare, I still have to book my flight personally.  I’m currently trying to decide if I want to do some personal travel around Africa after the volunteer stint and before heading home (this really isn’t much of a question, I already know that I want to.) Figuring out flight details is in the works.
  • Liberian Visa – As I’ve mentioned above, this is currently on hold as I wait for my passport to return. As soon as the passport is back in my hands it will be off to obtain Visa’s.  In looking at my post-volunteer travel wishes, it appears that I am actually in need of 3 total Visa’s: Liberia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. The remaining countries that I’m planning to travel (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana) either don’t require a visa or offer a visa on arrival. It will be interesting to see if I can get all three of the visa’s in time.
  • The Gypsy Nurse – Yes, this is on the ‘to-do’ list.  I’ll have limited internet capabilities while I’m volunteering and am desparately attempting to get enough website content pre-planned and ready to publish for the website. In addition, there are a lot of other technicalities that I’m trying to work though for the site. If you would like to contribute a story, photo, destination, etc It would greatly assist me in providing content for the reader during my ‘absence’.
  • The Travelers Conference – As one of the board members and primary organizers for #travcon14, I need to make sure that my commitments here are well covered and managed. I have a commitment to make the 2014 Travelers Conference the best one yet so I can’t slack off here.

As you can see, I’ve got a lot of work ahead in preparation and this doesn’t even take into account the PACKING!  Stay tuned for more information as I continue to share with you the process.