September 9, 1999 | Read Time: 1 minute
Vacations can be relaxing, exciting, exhausting, even boring, but Condé Nast Traveler (September) says they also can be “virtuous.”
The magazine offers readers a list of “worthy organizations” that invite vacationers to do good by working as volunteers in skilled and unskilled jobs at the destinations they visit. The magazine also profiles one of the world’s best-known volunteers, former President Jimmy Carter. He gives his time and construction talents to Habitat for Humanity International, a charity in Americus, Ga., that builds homes for the poor in the United States and scores of other countries.
Among the groups listed by the magazine — along with costs that vacationers may have to pay to participate in volunteer projects — are Cross-Cultural Solutions, which the magazine says has sent volunteers to India, Ghana, Peru, and Kosovo to work with local organizations on medical, educational, and social-service projects; Global Volunteers, which puts people to work in the United States and other countries in construction work, teaching, child and medical care, and business instruction; and the Earthwatch Institute, which teaches farming, hygiene, dietary, and health-care methods to people in such places as Cameroon and Zimbabwe.
The profile of Mr. Carter features his recent stint as a volunteer home builder in the Philippines for Habitat for Humanity. “Habitat can not only build a house but form an alliance between people and between nations,” Mr. Carter told the magazine. “And I think the principle of Habitat is one that can bring peace.”
