Personally, I never plan to use them again. Ever.
I’ve attempted several volunteer projects through WorldPackers, but my experience has been VERY uneven. Only two gave reasonably accurate descriptions (a cook’s assistant at a Turkish Restaurant in Chiapas, Mexico and helping street dogs in Cusco, Peru). Both of these programs I completed and spent a month at. I tried to volunteer at a monkey sanctuary in Ecuador, but the housing was full of black mold and I was bitten 3 times by the same monkey. I lasted a week and they did nothing about the monkey, even though he has done this repeatedly. I still have a scar 10 months later where he bit through 3 pieces of clothing. I tried to volunteer at what I thought was an animal sanctuary in Cusco, Peru. But it turned out to be 6 hrs from Cusco, by van on dangerous roads, and the man was selling our services to other people. Also, when I complained about safety concerns, I was thrown out and he would not refund my money. I agreed to be a caretaker at an “artist retreat” outside Mexico City. Turns out there were no artists, I was at the owner’s beck and call constantly and when she visited, she enjoyed yelling at everyone. I waked out. I recently worked at a Youth program in Nairobi, Kenya. While they were doing amazing work with children, I’d signed on to work in a library and read to children. Instead, I was sent to a public school (100 kids to a class), a private school, a feeding program (500 children each day) and an after school activities program. Also, I’d agreed to 5hrs/day, 5 days a week. They worked me 7 hours each day 6 days a week. All of this was in a slum with no sanitation, no clean water. A great program , but not what I’d signed on for. Finally, I attempted to volunteer at what was labeled a permaculture facility that sponsored native healing programs outside Cuenca, Ecuador. There had not been healing programs for months and even though the owner had been on the land 2 years, NOTHING was growing. The owner had a 5yo, deaf, autistic and almost non-verbal child who did NOT like me there. I could not keep him out of my room and possessions (there was no door) and anytime his father wasn’t looking, he’d hit me. I left. The real clincher was that WorldPackers would NOT let me leave an accurate, negative review. They would take it down and “offer” to let me re-write it, but would give no advice as to what they saw as wrong. Personally, I never plan to work through them again. WorldPackers is just a platform for organizations to post opportunities. These are NOT necessarily vetted in any way, no one checks if the information is accurate and since negative reviews are not allowed, you can’t trust those either. You are counting on everyone to be honest and sometimes they simply aren’t.