Is there any sort of clearing house on the island to help identify volunteer opportunities?

My two adult daughters and I will be arriving to live on Bonaire later this summer, we hope. At the present time, we are monolingual English, but we hope to be changing that.

My daughters have identified the Donkey Sanctuary and Animal Shelter as places they'd like to look into, but would like to know more about what else might be available. I'm a retired teacher and have been mostly involved in child advocacy work here in the States, but am open to anything that would be helpful and rewarding.

Looking down the road for the ladies, might effective volunteer work lead to a shot at getting sponsored for work permits?

Thanks, Pete Brown

Amother thought is Jong Bonaire which is an afterschool center for teenagers. They are well organized and I heard a rumor that they planned to be open this summer during our school vacation which is July through mid-August. http://www.jongbonaire.org

Hi Pete,

You might want to meet Alan Gross and Jane Townsend, a couple from NYC who have lived on Bonaire for many years. They were instrumental in establishing Jong Bonaire (Young Bonaire) which is an after school program for youth.

I believe Alan also now serves as head of a committee representing Non Government Organizations on Bonaire.

Michael Gaynor would be another excellent source. He has been involved with the handicapped and the Special Olympics effort on Bonaire.

There are many opportunities for helping on Bonaire in addition to those you mentioned. Sister Maria Hoppner Foundation houses children from families in disarray, Jong Bonaire, Special Olympics, the handicapped facility in Rincon all present volunteer opportunities.

Support Bonaire Inc. (www.supportbonaire.org) could also use some assistance helping charitable organizations on Bonaire apply for funding grants. Let me know if you have an interest in this and we can talk!

I doubt that volunteering can be leveraged into a better potential for work permits...one is an NGO effort and the other is a government approval process...not at all tied together.

Linda, Scott and Sharon,

Thank you for the suggestions! They will be pursued.

Scott, I'm an old independent school headmaster so I have had grant seeking/writing experience. My wife Peggy was a professional fund raiser in her working days so she did most of the heavy lifting at our schools, but i did pick up a little. It would be interesting to think about and discuss when we get there.

When do you expect you'll be moving down? We've just made our first offer, and have not heard back yet. We have a rather short list of places that would work well for us.

The inquiry about work permits wasn't made with the hope that there'd be a direct switch from volunteer to paid staff. Rather it was a hope that there might be local business persons involved in the volunteer work who would respond positively to seeing hard working persons with maturity, initiative and strong senses of responsibility. Then maybe they would want to hire such people whenever an opening arose in their business. Oh well.

Thanks, folks.

Pete

Hi Pete,

Looks like mid-July for us. Sharon has knee surgery next Friday...then recovery...so as soon as she is okay we head for Bonaire. Our containers leave next Tuesday!

Scott