MEET a new breed of traveller called the voluntourist.
Charity organisations here are seeing more and more of the likes of Ms Goh Siang Hwee, a 25-year-old financial adviser who takes part in community improvement projects while visiting a country.
She has just returned from a 14-day Youth Expedition Project (YEP) to Cambodia, where she spent 10 days building toilets and mending roads and the remaining time touring the country.
She said: "Such trips are a win-win. We help the needy and also learn from them how to appreciate the simplicity of life. And it is a good break from urban life."
Student Lee Pin Qi, 19, has had similar getaways there and in China. She said: "It is also an opportunity to travel a little and experience another culture."
The 20 overseas volunteers The Straits Times spoke with have similar sentiments.
Each "voluntourism" trip lasts a few weeks and usually involves offering labour or professional skills.
To fund the trip, these volunteers usually raise their own funds or take grants provided by the National Youth Council, if they fulfil certain conditions.
Five charity groups The Straits Times spoke to said a steadily increasing number of Singaporeans are keen to lend a helping hand to the less fortunate in other countries.
Habitat for Humanity's pool of overseas volunteers, for instance, grew by more than 100 between 2007 and last year. Mr Yong Teck Meng, the national director of Habitat for Humanity Singapore, added that its volunteers come from diverse walks of life. There are working adults, students and even the elderly.
"People go for trips like that in place of their regular overseas holiday. So this is a combination of the usual getaways plus achieving an altruistic outcome."
Young people are active in this area, say other organisations. NYC has, since 2000, supported more than 17,500 young people aged 15 to 35 on youth projects abroad. The number is growing year to year; it went from about 2,000 in 2007 to 2,200 last year.
A spokesman from Metropolitan YMCA Singapore noted that more schools are encouraging their students to go on overseas community-involvement programmes, and that more Singaporeans are volunteering overseas because of the Government's support for it and globalisation.
Organisations said the trend will enable them to expand the scope of activities overseas, since more donations to the cause are coming in from corporate sponsors and more people are signing up as volunteers.
The Singapore International Foundation (SIF), riding on the wave of increasing interest in international volunteerism and corporate social responsibility, launched an initiative late last year to encourage corporate sponsorship and to provide a pool of willing hands for specific projects.
Mr Aaron Ng, its director of international volunteerism & community partnerships, said this greater pool of resources enhances SIF's programmes, which deploy professionals abroad to share their skills with their counterparts to improve the quality of lives of overseas communities.
