When an epidemic strikes or a bloody war breaks out, victims need help-and if you're a health care professional, you can provide some of the help they desperately need. In 1971, a group of French doctors formed Médeéins Sans Frontièreè (or Doctors Without Borders, as it is usually known in the U.S., or MSF), an organization devoted to providing medical care to those in need. Today it is an international network with more than 2,500 doctors, nurses, and others volunteering their services in 80 countries around the globe. Beyond patient care, MSF tackles a range of health issues, including training personnel, water and sanitation improvement, and drug distribution. The stress level is high, but participants say the experience is unmatched.

The commitment MSF requires is a big one: a minimum of six months. More frequently, first time assignments last about a year to ensure project continuity. Also, whereas other volunteer programs rarely care about specialized skills or language proficiency, with this area of work both are crucial. However, you don't necessarily have to be medically trained to participate. MSF is also looking for logisticians, administrators, experts in humanitarian law, and other individuals who can contribute to their projects. MSF covers room and board, round-trip transportation, comprehensive insurance, and gives volunteers a small monthly stipend. To apply, fill out the application on its Web site (doctorswithoutborders.org/).

Once the necessary paperwork is in, MSF interviews qualified applicants and then tries to set them up with an assignment; this is a process that will take months. For more information on MSF and how to get involved, check out its Web site or write Doctors Without Borders, 333 Seventh Ave., 2 floor, New York, NY, 10001. You can also call 212/679-6800 (in New York) or 310/399-0049 (in Los Angeles).

Health Volunteers Overseas provides similar opportunities for a much shorter time frame; two to four weeks is the standard assignment length. But HVO is even more particular about who it needs: specialists in anesthesia, dentistry, internal medicine, oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthopaedics, pediatrics, hand surgery, nursing, and physical therapy. While at HVO's 60 project sites, spread out among 25 countries, volunteers train local health care providers to improve their ability to serve their communities. "This type of experience really pulls you into the culture," Director of Programs Kate Fincham explains. "You're working with the people who live there." As for costs, volunteers are responsible for all of their transportation to and from the program site, and some, but not all, of the programs provide housing and meals. All programs tend to be in areas with an extremely low cost of living, so volunteers can expect to pay somewhere around $2,000 for their trip. All expenses are tax-deductible. For more information, contact Health Volunteers Overseas, 1900 L St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036 (phone 202/296-0928; Web site: hvousa.org/).

Alleviating world poverty Yo
u perform this next voluntary deed with a highly impressive group. Like the fictitious priest who lived among the lepers, beggars, and cart-pullers of The City of Joy --hat massive mid-80s bestseller --o permanent members of the Fourth World Movement share the actual lives of the most abject poor in shantytown communities all over the world. Without making quite the same commitment, non-permanent "volunteers"spend two weeks each summer in workcamps at the movement ' international headquarters in Pierrelaye, France, or at a handful of other spots around Europe. These part-time volunteers are divided into two groups. For those 18 and over (with no upper age limit), the workcamp experience does not include interaction with those in extreme poverty.

Volunteers pay a small sum for room and board ($40 to $75/week, depending on location). For those aged 16-25, "Youth Branch Workcamps", one-week training sessions (estimate about $10 a day), offer direct interaction between volunteers and the impoverished. No knowledge of French is needed; work includes carpentry, painting, masonry, cooking, followed by evening discussions and readings, until recently with the movement's much-revered founder, the late Fr. Josef Wresinski.

Other volunteers devote three months, at any time of the year, to an unpaid internship at the movement's Washington, D.C., headquarters, or at the New York City branch office, again working with families living in extreme poverty on projects designed to draw them back into society: street libraries, literacy and computer programs, family vacations. Interns share housing (free) and housing duties with permanent Fourth World members, but are asked to contribute to food costs.

Because the movement is painfully strapped for funds, be sure to enclose an already-stamped, self-addressed envelope (and perhaps a contribution, too) when requesting further information and literature: Fourth World Movement, 107, Av. Du Génééaé Leclerc, 95480, Pierrelaye, France. Or view the Web site at atd-fourthworld.org/.

Promoting peace It
isn ' easy to find a way of experiencing life in a foreign country as an inclusive member of the community instead of a temporary visitor, but the group excursions run by the small volunteer organization, Lisle, strive towards this goal. Lisle arranges three-week programs across the world for groups of 12 to 15 participants of any age (from 8 to 80 years old on recent trips) and two to three group leaders. The programs bring members of the group and members of the host community together by focusing on an issue particularly significant to the community and directing the group ' daily activities towards progress on that issue.

On its Indian women's voices program, for example, group members visit development programs and rural women social workers. On Lisle's Bali program, group members work alongside Budakelin artists in their vision to create a cultural center for the community. The group and the native artists work towards engaging the community in the appreciation of such artistic endeavors as gamelan music, Balinese dancing, weaving, making prayer offerings, and woodcarving. Programs like the Indian program cost about $1,850 for three weeks, excluding airfare.

Lisle programs also include time for a group orientation to create initial supportive relationships among group members, and excursions away from the host communities, which may involve hiking, snorkeling, or mountain climbing. The organization also emphasizes personal reflection and self-growth throughout the trip, in hopes of inspiring a more accepting and socially responsible world community.

Assistance is available to those in need of financial support for their programs.

For more information, visit Lisle's Web site at http://ww.lisleinternational.org/ or write to Lisle, 900 County Rd., Suite 269,Leander, TX 78641 (phone 800/477-1538, email lisle@io.com).

Three Jimmy Carter-approved programs (The Friendship Force, I.E.S.C AND GATE)

His life--comparatively speaking--was in ruins. He had been defeated for reelection to the presidency. His family business was in debt. Prematurely retired, shaken and adrift, he faced a mid-life crisis more intense than most, but similar in essence to that confronting millions of middle-aged Americans.

And so he and his wife traveled. But in a different way. What restored the spirits of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, among several major steps, was an uncommon series of selfless, "outer-directed" trips. For them, travel was undertaken to discover new world issues and social needs, and--equally important--to be involved in curing the ills that travel revealed. The vacation challenge, writes the former president, "lies in figuring out how to combine further education with the pleasures of traveling in distant places, and, on occasion, helping to make the lives of the people you visit a little better." Having done both, the Carters leave little doubt that the activity has launched them on a second, rewarding phase of life.

In a remarkable book published by Random House--Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life--Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter tell, among other things, of the several life-enhancing travel or travel-related organizations with which they have associated their names, or which they recommend to others. These are: the Friendship Force, Habitat for Humanity (discussed in-depth in the "Building Blocks" volunteer section), GATE (Global Awareness Through Experience), and the International Executive Service Corps.

For the Carters, as for so many other Americans, simply to lie on a beach, or otherwise turn off the mind, is no longer the sole--or even the wisest--approach to vacationing. Using the mind is a far happier leisure activity. Seeking challenge and new ideas is the way to travel pleasure. A change can help us, in Allan Frommer's words, "become more alive again." And when the changes achieved through travel are combined with selfless activity--work designed to help others or advance world understanding--then what results is not a mere vacation, but some of the most rewarding interludes of life.

The Friendship Force

This is already known to many Americans. It is the 27-year-old, nonprofit, Atlanta-based organization founded by the Carters and the Rev. Wayne Smith, which each year sends thousands of adult travelers ("goodwill ambassadors") to live for one, two, or three weeks in foreign homes found in 56 countries on several continents. Subsequently, the foreign hosts come here to live in American homes. Since the stay in each case is basically without charge (except for transportation and administration), the cost of a Friendship Force holiday is considerably less than for standard trips to the same destination, and upward of 500,000 people have thus far participated. Upon returning, they continue to exchange correspondence or privately arranged visits with the families they have met. In this way, writes Rosalynn Carter, "friendships are ... made that can only lead to a more peaceful world."

For information on membership in the Friendship Force, and on the exchanges planned from dozens of U.S. cities, contact Friendship Force International, 34 Peachtree St., Suite 900, Atlanta, GA 30303 (phone 404/522-9490, Web site friendship-force.org/, e-mail info@friendshipforce.org).

Whereas Doctors without Borders and Health Volunteers Overseas especially needs people with medical expertise, the International Executive Service Corps (901 15th S^t. NW, suite 1010, Washington, DC, 20005, phone 202/326-0280, Web iesc.org/), needs experts in the world of business. IESC arranges trips for retired business executives to lend their expertise to would-be entrepreneurs in developing nations.

GATE (Global Awareness Through Experience) (contact GATE, 912 Market Street, LaCrosse, WI 54601 or phone 608/791-5283. There's also a Web site at travel-gate.org/) offers tours to experience the realities of life in the "Emerging World," and is operated by an order of Catholic nuns, the Sisters of Charity. Most GATE tours (to the Czech Republic, Poland, Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador) are 10 days in length, and consist of visits to untouristed local communities and homes, and daily seminars attended by persons representing every stripe of political thinking at the destination. Tour members learn, says GATE, "from the poor, as well as from social and political analysts, theologians and economists." GATE tours are among the least expensive to anywhere, and generally cost $950, plus airfare, for 10 days of all-inclusive arrangements (all lodgings, meals, and transportation to programmed events), in addition to a $150 non-refundable registration fee.

A "mini-Peace Corps"

Each year a Minneapolis/St. Paul organization called Global Volunteers offers some 70 varied departures of a "working vacation" to host communities such as Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Tanzania, Indonesia, Vietnam, Spain, Russia, Poland and within the U.S. --ach lasting a manageable two or three weeks. And each will be available to those with no particular engineering or agricultural skills --ike lawyers, let ' say, or homemakers from Memphis or Chattanooga. Since Global Volunteer ' inception, more than 10,000 volunteers have been put to work around the globe.

If all this seems a bit of radical chic, a patronizing, quick trip by dilettantes (as it initially appeared to me), then you'll want to know the following:

Each trip is undertaken at the specific request of the host community, for projects they eagerly wish to complete. The long and laborious task of soliciting such invitations has largely occupied the time of the organization over the past several years, and is now complete. No one arrives uninvited, and villagers give a warm welcome to the volunteers who will assist them in programs of education (teaching English, math, or science), health care (building clinics and community centers), and natural resources (securing potable water supplies, reforestation)--all as mapped out by the villagers themselves.

Though each participant stays for only two or three weeks, the projects go on for a much longer time, and are worked on by successive groups averaging eight to 12 volunteers apiece. As one group leaves, another arrives, and the work continues unabated.

On some trips to the less developed countries, so great is the gap in formal education between the villagers (many of them illiterate and thus unable to read instructions) and their guests (mostly college graduates) that even the most technically untrained of those volunteers can make a substantial contribution. "I never knew I had these skills," said one middle-aged matron, "but mixing concrete is like baking a cake: you simply follow the recipe."

The initial four or five visits apiece in 1989-1995 to each of the destinations (a total of 39 preparatory trips) were immensely successful. "We built a relationship of trust," says Burnham (Bud) Philbrook, a lawyer and former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives who is president of Global Volunteers. "We showed them that not all Americans were like characters from 'Dallas.' " Currently, the requests for further visits arriving from villages around the world are far greater than the number of volunteers on hand to make the trips.

In the early 1990s, the organization made frequent visits to such locations as the following:

In every village, the organization insists that the ultimate responsibility for development be on the local people, who initiate and supervise every project, using resources on hand and tools they are familiar with. In total agreement with the teachings of the late British economist E. F. Schumacher ("Small Is Beautiful"), Global Volunteers imports no complex devices or machines; if shovels are lacking to dig a well, they send out no urgent orders for a shovel, but use local implements. While providing assistance, the volunteers learn about community structures, family loyalties, courage in the face of adversity, "receiving far more than we contribute," according to Philbrook.

As one volunteer put it: "I expected to find a sense of futility and hopelessness. I discovered instead a determination of the human spirit to carry on in spite of limited circumstances, an attitude of innovation and make-do, an eagerness to learn new ideas, and hope for their children to have a better life than they've had."

Lest the group be accused of overlooking widespread poverty and development needs here at home, the organization runs about a dozen programs in the United States as well. A program in the Mississippi Delta focuses on community improvement--volunteers build and paint community buildings as well as tutor both children and adults.

Because Global Volunteers is a registered, nonprofit organization, contributions to it are tax deductible; and because the expenses incurred by each volunteer are deemed to be contributions by them, they, too, are deductible (provided you don't take any additional vacation immediately before or after the scheduled trip). Keep that in mind when considering the modest cost of participating: from $750 for one week in the United States and between $1,370 - $2,750 for international trips to places such as China, the Cook Islands, Poland, Greece, Tanzania, the Ukraine and Northern Ireland (among others), not including airfare, but otherwise all-inclusive. Each of these prices is reduced by federal and state tax savings of as much as 38% for some Americans. And each price includes the services of a trained "team leader," and about $100 per person for project materials (concrete, nails, other construction aids).

Accommodations? A "guest house" in Spain; hotels in Poland, Mexico, Vietnam; community housing, dormitory style in the developing countries. In the U.S., homestays with local people. The emphasis in each case is on experiencing local life from a non-tourist perspective.

To join a "private" Peace Corps sponsoring short-term working vacations, one that has gained my own excited attention to the same extent as the original Peace Corps, contact: Global Volunteers, 375 East Little Canada Rd., St. Paul, MN 55117-1628 (phone 800/487-1074 or email@globalvolunteers.com). Or view the Web site at globalvolunteers.org/ for organization and program information.

Send your child to an international workcamp

This summer, many thousands of American teenagers will be hurtling through Europe by escorted motor coach, isolated from the life of that continent by the steel-and-glass enclosure of their buses. They will socialize with one another, speak and hear English throughout, eat in segregated sections of hotel dining rooms, and regard themselves--subconsciously but firmly--as a privileged elite.

A better-informed segment of our youth will be sent by their parents, out of motives of the purest love, to international workcamps. International "workcamps"--a horrid term unrelated to the happy atmosphere of the sites--were first formed at the end of World War I. A Swiss pacifist, Pierre Ceresole, conceived of projects in which youth of the former combatants--France and Germany--would work together to clear the wreckage of war. Fittingly, he chose the battlefield of Verdun for the first voluntary "workcamp." Several hundred such places are now found in countries of both Western and Eastern Europe.

There they will perform socially useful projects in the full midst of the European population. They will mix with other international young people, attempt foreign languages, make lifelong friendships, enjoy the satisfaction of contributing to worthy efforts, gain an appreciation for the realities of life abroad, and feel their minds stretch and grow. Work responsibilities for young people vary widely. In the midlands of England, they take underprivileged children on summer excursions to the sea. On the outskirts of Paris, they fill in for vacationing orderlies at centers for the aged. In the national parks of Germany, they restore hiking trails or clear away debris. And in the slums of Boston, they help to refurbish low-cost housing for the poor. While no one would denigrate their ensuing accomplishments, it becomes clear that the camaraderie of shared work, and the international understanding it brings about, are as important as the structures they build or the services they render.

The major volunteer vacation resources

Here in the United States, the two major clearinghouses for information on nearly 1,000 international workcamps (they will also book you into them) are: SCI/International Voluntary Service, 5474 Walnut Level Rd., Crozet, CA, 22932 (phone: 206/350-6585) or see the Web site at sci-ivs.org/; and Volunteers for Peace International Workcamps (VFP), 1034 Tiffany Road, Belmont, VT 05730 (phone 802/259-2759, fax 802/259-2922, e-mail vfp@vfp.org) or view the Web site at vfp.org/. SCI requires its overseas volunteers to be at least 18 years of age, and will accept 16- and 17-year-olds only into its several domestic workcamps scattered around the country. Volunteers in third world countries must be 21. VFP will accept 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds for certain programs in Western and Eastern Europe. It enforces an 18-year-old minimum for the remainder of all international camps and U.S. workcamps, although there are a few camps that accept parents with children. Those can be found in Switzerland, Italy, and Denmark.

SCI, with branches worldwide, is the more strongly ideological of the two; many of its workcamps stress liberal political values or ecological concerns. Recent workcamps have included construction of energy-efficient "hogans" (dwellings) and aid to elderly people on Navajo reservations in the Far West; gardening and outdoor activities in Los Angeles with young people otherwise in danger of recruitment into youth gangs; staffing of refugee camps in Croatia; renovating a home for AIDS patients in Matera, Italy.

VFP is less political in its approach. "We believe that any opportunity to come into contact with other cultures is worthwhile," is how a recent official once put it. Sample activities include coordinating activities in a center for the homeless of Vienna, repairing a Belgian Red Cross shelter for political refugees, path clearing and fire prevention work in Italian wildlife parks.

Interestingly, in the past both programs have included numerous camps in Central and Eastern Europe (building a kindergarten in Bosnia, working on environmental projects in the Czech Republic); and VFP is particularly proud of its record of sending youthful American participants to several different workcamps in Russia. For three- and four-week periods in the summer, international volunteers helped an equal number of Russians to build a children's sanatorium on the west bank of the Volga, assisted scientists in identifying and tracking wildlife in various nature preserves of the Western Urals, and worked in two children's hospitals in Moscow. Programs include organized discussion and debate on local culture, history and politics. Construction-based programs do not include a formal forum for such interchange.

What does it all amount to? Listen to the returning three-week volunteers. "It was wonderful," said a youngster from Michigan, "to see people working toward a common goal, not as 'Americans' or 'Czechs' or 'Germans' or 'Catholics' or 'Protestants' or 'Jews,' but as people." "I felt so lucky to have befriended people from around the world and across the political spectrum," said another. "There were 60 of us, from 14 nations, and after work we would sit around a campfire. What followed were conversations and arguments, some dancing, and also some people sitting quietly, reflecting. It was during those informal times that I learned the most."

Both the SCI and VFP directories for the coming summer are published in April. SCI charges $35 for membership, newsletters and a yearly list of opportunities; VFP asks a mere $20 (and the latter charge also includes subscription to a newsletter and is deducted from any later registration fee). The two groups also post their workcamp directories online. After perusing the several hundred descriptions of workcamps, applicants pay (to SCI) $115 for a U.S. workcamp assignment, $175 for one abroad; and (to VFP) $250 for the majority of programs. Those prices usually include room and board (but in some situations you'll have to pay more, in cash when you arrive), but do not include airfare or ground transportation to the workcamp.

The Council on International Educational Exchange (C.I.E.E.), 7 Custom House, 3rd floor^, Portland, ME, 04101 (phone 800/40-STUDY, Web site: ciee.org/) lists dozens of International Volunteer Projects for college-aged people throughout the world, including several in the U.S. Projects, which range from serving as an assistant at a summer camp for people with disabilities to helping to restore a medieval castle, are typically scheduled for the summer months and last two to four weeks. Participants must be at least 18, and the majority of volunteers are 25 or under.

A similar but much smaller and more expensive program for high school students called Global Service Projects is also offered by the C.I.E.E. During the summer of 2002 (the first year for its high school-only programs), there were trips to Costa Rica, New Zealand, South Africa, and Spain. Students work on various projects, such as rainforest preservation (in Costa Rica), replanting trees (in New Zealand), or vegetation studies (on a game reserve in South Africa). Trips last from two to five weeks, and cost between $3,200 and $5,000, including international airfare, room and board.