Click here for the Registration Form which can be emailed to us as an attached file IF you pay for your registration fee online. Alternately, the form can be faxed to 802-259-2922 or scanned and emailed as an attached file with payment made on page two by credit card.

Completing the Registration Form

The VFP registration form appears as simple text and can be printed directly from your web browser or selected, cut and pasted into any word processor where the page layout is set to 1" margins on all sides of a standard 8 1/2" x 11" page. You can copy the project/s of your choice from the list of Open Projects on the web or the printed Directory and enter those choices onto the form. Feel free to edit the form as needed including deleting lines to make room for your entries. If copying the form, please change the font size to 12 point, this will make it more readable when faxed.

When filling in your Registration Form, please PRINT legibly, using BLACK INK (blue ink does not show up well when we fax it abroad). Please keep in mind that your form will be read by people who's native language is not English, so be very clear. If you have questions about how to fill out the registration form please call and ask us. It is very helpful to include a brief statement of motivation, listing any special skills you have that are relevant to the project.
A check, money order or credit card for your project registration fee MUST accompany your Registration Form if it is sent by surface mail. If the fee is not received with the form, your placement will be delayed until the fee is received.
Some projects have additional fees due upon arrival. These fees are to be paid to the host organization on arrival. In these cases VFP may lower it's registration fee accordingly, or offer a refund for a project report. Please read the project descriptions carefully to determine the fee/s for the project you are registering for. If you are unsure of the fee, please call and ask us.
If you are registering for one project but are listing several choices, some of which have different fees, you should send a check for the registration fee that is required for your first choice of project/s. If you are placed in a project with a different fee we will contact you regarding the different fee due or any refund owed you.
The registration form requests both your present address and your emergency/ parent's address. Students: be sure to give us an address/phone where you can be reached between the end of school and your departure date! We must be able to contact you easily up until your departure. Attach a separate sheet if you need to clarify your contact info.

Who Can Register?

Citizens and residents of North America may register through VFP. Volunteers from Canada should visit the Canadian webpage for additional information before applying. We may also accept your registration if you live in a country where we do not have a partner organization. If you are a citizen of a country where we have a partner organization, and you are currently in that country, you must register through our partner organization there, not through VFP.

Age Limits

If you will be under 18 at the time of the project then you may only register for projects that are listed for volunteers under 18. The ages for volunteers appear in the header of each project description. Age limits are firm, we can NOT make exceptions because our foreign partner organizations determine the age limits for their projects. A few or our partner organizations list upper age limits in some of their projects, these are also listed in the header of each project description. Some partner organizations are open to families every year, they will be listed as a "family" camp type in the searchable Directory.

Restrictions

If you have any medical or dietary restrictions, it is very important to mention them. Be advised that we don't guarantee accommodation of such needs, including vegetarianism, unless specified in the camp announcement. In some countries vegetarianism is virtually unknown and you may find yourself faced with little choice but to go hungry and/or insult your hosts. You may have to be prepared to be more flexible with your diet during your travels. Some vegetarians who travel find that it is helpful to bring along a stash of protein-rich food (like peanut butter or dry seeds/nuts) to supplement their diet.

Some camp announcements may state other restrictions such as no smoking, no alcohol or hard labor, volunteers must be in good physical condition. Please read descriptions carefully and be sure you are willing to accept the conditions listed.

How to Register

We prefer that you either email us your completed registration form ( as an attached file ) or fax it to us after you pay your registration fee/s online. You can also surface mail us your form, along with your check for the registration fee/s. If you do not pay online, we must have your signature on file, so electronic registrations that are not paid online are only accepted if they are scanned images of your completed registration form including your signature and authorization for payment. Volunteers paying by credit card must have the cardholder sign the form where indicated, and include the full credit card information and expiration date.

When we receive your registration form in our office we forward it overseas to the receiving host organization. We must then wait for them to respond. We hope to receive their response within 3-5 business days but there are occasional delays in some cases such as the longer term MTV/LTV placements. There are a few of our partner organizations that will not reply to registrations requests until as late as April 18th. We will always send you our acceptance letter and information sheet by email. We send these by post only upon request or if you don't have email. Projects are filled on a first-come, first-serve basis.

If we cannot place you in any of the projects that you have selected, we will contact you for more selections. If we cannot place you in a project of your choice we will promptly send you a full refund of your registration fee. The VFP membership fee is not refundable.

Placement is not guaranteed since most projects will not accept more than two American volunteers, reserving the remaining spaces for other nationalities in an effort to maintain intercultural diversity, which is a key feature of the projects. We prefer that you give us several additional choices of projects that you are willing to accept. We will always try to place you in your first choice, but if that is not possible, we will try your second or third options if provided on your form. For this reason, you should never buy a plane ticket before being officially accepted to a project. We will try to place you in any project which you have selected, in order of your preference, so please don't list something you don't really want!

Note that VFP updates the availability in the projects frequently, but we may only get a status report from our partners on a weekly or bi-weekly basis about how many places are left in a particular project. Therefore, projects we have listed as available in our Open Online Project Directory may have already been filled by the time a volunteer applies. That is one of the reasons why we encourage volunteers to consider alternative choices in case they are not placed in their first choice project.

Motivation!

We depend on your genuine desire to be part of a working group. The vast majority of our volunteers are committed to working for the common goals of the project. If you are only interested in tourism or a cheap vacation, please do not register for a project.

Fees

Unless otherwise stated, the VFP registration fee is US $300 per project plus the mandatory VFP annual membership of US $30. The registration fee covers all your expenses including meals and accommodation for one project. You will automatically have your VFP Membership renewed in 2009 for any report that we receive about your project experience/s by October 1, 2008 or within 30 days after your project ends.

In developing countries, there are additional fees (also known as the Partner Organization Fee) payable upon arrival that vary depending on the hosting organization. These extra fees are typical in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the developing world in general. These fees tend to vary from $100 - $500 USD. Please note that this extra fee may vary by up to $25 higher or lower, depending on the value of the US Dollar versus the currency of the country you are going to, so please be prepared to make up the difference. At present, the value of the US dollar is decreasing in the world market. For the most recent conversions please visit (www.xe.com).

The extra fee is used in support of the partner organization’s work, including administration of programs as well as organizing workcamps. In many cases, this extra fee is the ONLY form of financial support for the organization, since they have limited access to government or private funds, or members who can pay a fee to participate.

VFP offers a refund of $50 in most situations where volunteers have to pay an extra fee.

All transportation is arranged and paid for by the volunteer.

Please note that if you are registering for more than one project, you must include the registration fee for each project (i.e. 2 projects x $300= $600). Don't schedule consecutive projects too closely. A few days between projects provides the necessary time to "re-group" emotionally from the intense friendships, sad goodbyes and gives you time to rest up before beginning a new project.

Deadlines

REGISTER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE for best selection. There is no specific deadline, but early registration ensures a much greater chance of placement in your preferred camp/s. The majority of placements for the summer months are made before mid-May, but we place volunteers year-round. Some projects fill very quickly.

Unfortunately, we can't tell you if a space is available in any particular project until we receive your form & fee and can actually request your placement. The enrollment situation in any particular project changes by the minute since volunteers are registering also from many other countries and organizations. Please don't call to ask if any camps are full, we will not know until we try to place you. If a project appears on our website, then it was still open on the day the database was uploaded.

Changing Your Project Selections

There is a very stiff penalty of $150 per change, payable in advance, for changing your project selections after we have already received your registration form. Once we have made your placement request to our partner organization/s they, and VFP, turn away other potential volunteers who may be registering for the same space. There is a lot of paperwork and international electronic communication that goes along with every placement request, therefore, by this fee, we strongly discourage any changes to your selection/s.

Traveling Together With a Friend

Two people wishing to be placed in one project together should register as soon as possible after projects are announced and select projects that request more than 12 vols. Projects that request 11 or fewer volunteers in Europe, usually only accept 1-2 volunteers from the USA. Send in both your and your friend's registration forms together IF possible and ALWAYS write on the forms that you want to be placed together. It can be difficult or impossible to place more than 2 people together in a project. Exceptions include a few projects in Germany and most projects in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Another option is to do separate camps with similar dates (you will make more friends!) and travel together after/before the project/s.

Reports / Photos

We will renew your membership for 2009 if you submit any report (even a postcard!) on your project experience, postmarked no later than October 1st, 2008 or within 30 days after your project ends. Also, for many of the projects where there is an extra fee, we will renew your membership AND refund $50 or more of your registration fee for any project report.

If we use any of your photos in our 2009 Newsletter or online, we'll send you a check for $25 per photo used. We also would like to receive short video clips (AVI files) of your project which you can take with your digital camera. Your concise and candid comments help us to improve the projects. Also, we often need previous volunteers to co-lead VFP camps here in the US. Please EMAIL VFP to get on that mailing list!

Volunteers for Peace, Inc., 1034 Tiffany Road, Belmont, Vermont 05730-0202, USA
Telephone: 802-259-2759 | Fax: 802-259-2922 | E-Mail: vfp@vfp.org