Career chocies?

Question

i'm 16 years old and have been thinking a lot lately about what to do with the rest of my life. do you guys know what kinds of careers there are that deal with helping people in thrid world countries or even here at home? i truely don't care about making a lot of money, just helping people.

Answer 1

I agree with the first two responses.  Social work does sound like a good choice, ESPECIALLY if you don't care about making money!  You should talk to your guidance counselor, though, and see if they have any career exploration tools to help you figure out what would suit you.  If you do want to work in a third world country, most of the areers a career exploration tool would come up with can be used in the US or a third world country.  I know many US doctors practice in the US, but then take part of each year, or even several times each year to go practice in third world countries.  I think the organization they use is calle Doctors Without Borders, or something like that.  Even if you aren't interested in medicine, that organization may have other things they need help with that may strike you as something you want to do.

Answer 2

I am involved with volunteer organizations  most of my life.

I am also a qualified care giver. My personal advice is to educate yourself in the field you want to enter.As you get older you would need  money . In my youth I did volunteering which I enjoyed . Than came the rent, the car, the family and than the reality struck home.I needed some kind of qualification to continue . You are sixteen get your experience from volunteering . In between your volunteering get some kind of qualification

Answer 3

Maybe look into social work.  Trust me, you don't have to go to a third world country to apply this trade, you can work right here in the US.  The inner cities, prisons, schools, mental health agencies, hospitals, hospices, and the like need people.  I've been a social worker since 1973 and, even though I've seen some pretty ugly things, I wouldn't trade my experiences for anything.

Answer 4

What about International Development? Most universities have a department for International Development and it's got some really great stuff. Most graduates work for international NGOs or overseas.

Also, a lot of local colleges also have programs. They're often called Peace and Conflict. Courses on Poli-Sci are good as well as they're are lots of international aspects.

Answer 5

Talk to your career services counselor at school.  It's good to be altruistic, but you also have to worry about how to feed and cloth yourself.  Your counselor should be able to give you some information on careers where you can do both.

Answer 6

You've gotten some really great advice already. Volunteering is a great way to do career exploration -- volunteer for different nonprofit organizations that address different aspects of poverty and social exclusion, including organizations that address HIV/AIDS, and see what they do, what the different jobs at the organization are, etc. You can even ask to job shadow someone for a few days, going with them to meetings and such to see how it is they do their jobs.

Start educating yourself now about issues of poverty. Sign up for some email newsletters, such as those by CARE International and Madre.org, and read them regularly.

If you want to see some of the kinds of jobs people do overseas, go to

http://www.reliefweb.int

and click on "vacancies"

To work overseas, you need to be able to WORK in another language. Spanish is good for central and South America; French is good for several countries in Africa, as well as some countries; Russian speakers are sought for many countries in Eastern Europe; Hindi or Chinese are excellent choices; Farsi/Tajik/Dari is a great choice for Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Iran; Portuguese is a great choice, because there are so many poor countries that were former Portuguese colonies.