Fellowships, Internships & Volunteer Opportunities
Below is a list of OLAM partners that offer fellowship, internship, or volunteer opportunities in developing countries, in Israel, and across the globe.
Please note that there is a cost to take part in several of the opportunities listed below.
Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village (ASYV)
Founded in response to the orphan crisis caused by the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and modeled after the Israeli youth village Yemin Orde, ASYV empowers orphaned and vulnerable Rwandan youth to build lives of dignity and contribute to a better world.
Type of opportunity: Fellowship
Country: Rwanda
Length: ~11 months
Ideal for: Anyone with an undergraduate and/or advanced degree that have some experience working with youth
Description: The Village Fellows program of the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village places international volunteers (“Fellows”) at ASYV in Rwanda as staff. Fellows work in professional roles, including: supporting the ASYV visitor program, communications, health & wellness, English language learning, career development, information technology, and more.
More about the ASYV Fellows program >
Type of opportunity: Service-learning trips for groups of 6-30
Country: Rwanda
Length: 8 days
Ideal for: Anyone
Description: An opportunity for high school, college, and adult groups to engage in a meaningful exchange with ASYV students, staff, and peers, and learn about Rwanda’s history and culture. Participants cultivate an understanding of and commitment to global citizenship and a deeper awareness of our place in the wider world. Participants witness how Rwandans have changed their country's narrative and return home inspired to bring all they’ve learned to their own communities.
Brit Olam - International Volunteering and Development
An Israeli public association whose activities include developing and executing community-based development programs to reduce poverty and vulnerability in developing countries, as well as providing relief and rehabilitation projects in states of humanitarian crises.
Type of opportunity: Volunteer
Countries: Various
Length: Varies
Ideal for: Israelis and Jewish volunteers from around the world (specialized volunteers & laypeople)
Description: Brit Olam–Topaz offers Israel and Jews from around the world a unique volunteering experience that entails both giving and receiving. Many of Brit Olam–Topaz's volunteer programs are based on extensive professional knowledge and experience, and are often conducted in professional partnerships with first-rate local partners and organizations. Brit Olam–Topaz works to provide its volunteers with interesting and satisfying activity frameworks and supplies professional support and guidance during field activities.
CADENA
A civil society organization focused on disaster and crisis prevention and assistance.
Type of opportunity: Volunteer
Countries: Various
Length: Varies
Ideal for: Anyone (specialized volunteers & laypeople)
Description: Volunteers can join groups focused on specific matters: search and rescue, needs assessments, water harvesting systems, and gender perspective. These groups engage in specialized volunteer training programs in their respective field of interest. In each case of humanitarian action, different roles are designated to different members of the team to perform the activities for the day: leader, co-leader, professional volunteer group (people trained in photography, medicine, dentistry, or psychology), and general volunteer group.
CultivAID
An Israeli not-for-profit organization operating in East Africa that specializes in capacity-building, as well as knowledge and technology transfer initiatives - with a focus on agriculture, water, and nutrition.
Type of opportunity: Internship
Countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda
Length: 6-12 months
Ideal for: Experienced agronomists & technicians
Description: CultivAid’s international internships program is creating a new path for developing a more experienced type of agronomist and technician, who will then be able to spread knowledge and capabilities around Israel and to different parts of the world. The internships provide practical experience for young professionals in the implementation, operation, and maintenance of the technologies being introduced. Local interns work side by side with their Israeli counterparts on the implementation of year-round operations.
Fair Planet
An Israeli non-profit providing smallholder farmers in developing countries with means to exit the malnutrition and poverty cycle through access to the highest quality seeds.
Type of opportunity: Volunteer
Country: Ethiopia
Length: 3-6 months. Volunteers may extend their volunteering period after 2 months.
Ideal for: Anyone
Description: Fair Planet volunteers are trained to manage project sites. Their tasks include: overseeing varieties trials, guiding farmers, training local experts, and much more - all for the success of smallholder farmers. Over 100 volunteers have joined Fair Planet's project, many of whom had no agricultural experience when they began. Fair Planet's expert team knows how to train volunteers so that they can work in a professional manner.
Gabriel Project Mumbai (GPM)
Gabriel Project Mumbai (GPM), a community-led development organization, creates innovative and comprehensive solutions to the problems of extreme poverty by working with vulnerable communities in urban slums and under-served areas.
Type of opportunity: Internship
Country: India
Length: 1 yr / 4 months / summer / 4 weeks
Ideal for: Anyone, though some specific internships have their own acceptance criteria
Description: GPM holds space for 4-5 long-term internships, based in the rural tribal district of Mokhada. Interns work with the GPM staff within the organizational needs, focusing on community development in education, hygiene, health, nutrition, social services, agriculture, and livelihood. These can be sponsored or unsponsored internships depending on what is available, but if an internship is not sponsored by an external organization, the intern will be required to find another source of funding to cover expenses incurred.
Note: GPM living quarters are kosher, co-ed (separate gender-rooms), smoke-free, drug-free, alcohol-free
Type of opportunity: Short-term volunteer
Country: India
Length: 1 or more days
Ideal for: Anyone
Description: Groups and individual visitors come for a day or more with the goal of learning about the issues facing underserved communities in the slums or villages of India and/or to help by lending a hand and volunteering in the communities.
Heroes for Life
Volunteering in 16 different countries around the world in order to do good and to represent the beautiful face of Israel.
Type of opportunity: Volunteer
Countries: At least 2 dozen countries including Peru, Brazil, South Africa, Ethiopia, Uganda, India, Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, Nepal, Burma, Vietnam, Argentina
Length: 2 weeks
Ideal for: Israeli soldiers who've completed their military service
Description: Heroes for Life organization organizes 2-week volunteer cycles in developing countries for Israeli soldiers who are traveling after completing their mandatory military service. Each volunteer team consists of 30 Israeli backpackers who are prescreened in Israel. While the individuals on the teams change each year, the teams return to the same areas, ensuring continuity in their work. Volunteer work is divided into 3 categories: education, renovating schools & homes, and medical assistance
helpUp
An Israeli organization working to make volunteering accessible to everyone, so that they can discover their true strength, meet great people, and understand how much satisfaction and pleasure there is in working together to achieve a goal.
Type of opportunity: Volunteer
Countries: Israel, various countries in Africa
Length: 3-1/2 months in Israel, 2 weeks in an African country
Ideal for: Israelis between 18-70
Description: HelpUp aspires to create minor changes in villages throughout several African countries, according to the needs of the local community, and working in full collaboration with the community members. Every helpUp group that works in Africa first volunteers in Israel (i.e.: at boarding schools, assisting providing meals & medical equipment to soldiers, working on farms). In Africa, there are general volunteer opportunities, medical missions to hospitals, educational volunteering, construction libraries, schools, and more.
JDC Entwine
JDC Entwine, an initiative of JDC, Entwine offers transformative global service and travel experiences, innovative educational programs, and tailored leadership development opportunities to young Jews, so that they can live a life of action with global Jewish responsibility at its core.
Type of opportunity: Ralph I. Goldman Fellowship
Countries: Typically, RIG Fellows serve in 2 or 3 countries during the fellowship year.
Length: 1 year
Ideal for: Rising young leaders who have experience as professionals or lay leaders in the Jewish community
Description: The Ralph I. Goldman Fellowship in Global Jewish Leadership (RIG) is JDC’s premier leadership opportunity, awarded to one person annually, for rising professionals or lay leaders in the Jewish community, young thinkers and doers from all fields — policy makers, writers, business innovators, artists, and community builders.
This is a paid, professional opportunity for an exceptional young leader who is committed to impacting the global Jewish world.
More about the Ralph I Goldman Fellowship >
Type of opportunity: Jewish Service Corps Fellowship
Countries: JDC works in 70+ countries. Fellows have served in Hungary, Israel, Poland, Rwanda, Croatia and more!
Length: 11 months
Ideal for: Recent college graduates & young professionals
Description: The JDC Entwine Global Jewish Service Corps Fellowship (JSC) places recent college graduates and young professionals in year-long service opportunities in global communities served by JDC. Fellows contribute to community life while developing their leadership capacity and knowledge of global Jewish causes. Ongoing learning, including three leadership retreats around the world and monthly coaching, support the fellow’s growth, developing leaders who have a global mindset and a powerful skillset.
Type of opportunity: Weitzman Fellowship
Countries: JDC works in 70+ countries. Fellows have served in Romania, Belarus, Ukraine, India, Argentina, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and the United Arab Emirates
Length: 1 year
Ideal for: students at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
Description: A one-of-a-kind, innovative, multi-year Fellowship that aims to strengthen the value of global Jewish responsibility and sense of Jewish peoplehood among students training to serve as leaders in their Jewish communities. Joining this program will take you from the Former Soviet Union to Central Europe and beyond (you’ll get to choose).
More about the Weitzman Fellowship >
Type of opportunity: Travel experience
Countries: Worldwide
Length: 1 week
Ideal for: Recent college graduates & young professionals
Description: Entwine Insider Trips provide unparalleled access to global communities and the work of JDC, the leading Jewish humanitarian organization. Experience cultural immersion and global exchange, complemented by dynamic conversations around the value of global Jewish responsibility.
Justifi: Adventure with Purpose
Justifi trips take you into the heart of the local culture while giving you insight into the issues facing the country from some of the inspirational people working there to make a real change.
Type of opportunity: Travel experience + Volunteer
Countries: Worldwide
Length: 10+ days / 1 month / 5 months
Ideal for: Anyone 18+
Description: Justifi is more than a trip to a cool location; Justifi will strengthen your Jewish identity through tikkun olam, while presenting you with extraordinary, once in a lifetime activities including: supporting vulnerable children, engaging local communities, assisting refugees, and contributing through building, planting, painting, and teaching English to kids.
Mensch
Mensch supports and develops social change-makers, facilitates volunteering, and builds bridges between people, to bring about positive transformation in South Africa.
Type of opportunity: Volunteer
Country: South Africa
Length: Various
Ideal for: Anyone
Description: Mensch, based in Cape Town, believes that everyone has the power to ‘make a difference,’ whether big or small, through professional work or by volunteering your time. The Mensch Community builds bridges to connect the Jewish community to the wider South African and international communities, through its Mitzvah Day, social impact projects, and other programmes.
NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief
NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief is an all-volunteer Israeli humanitarian disaster relief organization with over 19 years of experience in global operations. NATAN collaborates with international NGOs and local communities throughout the world.
Type of opportunity: Volunteer
Countries: Worldwide
Length: Various
Ideal for: Recent graduates, experienced certified skilled professionals in the psychosocial field (nurses, dental professionals, social workers), disaster relief & international development professionals, students, retirees
Description: NATAN volunteers provide medical, dental, and psycho-social aid to survivors to both natural and human-made disasters - most notably refugees. And you don’t need to travel around the world to help us help others. If you have administrative, technical or creative skills, you can join the NATAN team from home, by providing administration, writing, translating, design, photography, video editing, technical or technological skills.
Operation Ethiopia
Operation Ethiopia is a proudly Jewish and Israeli organization whose mission is to bring high-quality eyecare directly to every Ethiopian in need - Jews and non-Jews alike - though mobile eyecare clinics, eye surgeries, training villagers in first aid, and empowering Ethiopian ophthalmologists with hands-on subspecialty training.
Type of opportunity: Volunteer
Country: Ethiopia
Length: 1 week
Ideal for: Ophthalmologists & optometrists, EMTs, laypeople 18+. All volunteers must speak Hebrew & English.
Description: The main goal of Operation Ethiopia volunteer trips are to run Mobile Eyecare clinics in rural villages. Laypeople are trained to operate devices that screen for glaucoma and auto-refract for vision. They also check in patients, manage medication distribution, fit patients with reading glasses, and more.
EMTs, in addition to participating in our Mobile Eyecare Clinics, teach first aid and CPR to medical staff in Gondar University hospital, out in the field, and also to laypeople in the Jewish community. All volunteers are invited to help with the SSEJ feeding program for malnourished children during early mornings in the Jewish compound.
Orthodox Union Relief Missions
OU Relief Missions has run over 250 missions to over 20 different locations across America & around the world. From teens to adults, OU Relief Missions unite under the banner of compassion, change, chessed, and tikkun olam.
Type of opportunity: Short-term service-learning programs
Countries: Multiple locations
Length: Typically 1 week but varies by location
Ideal for: Teens & young adults
Description: Activities vary by location and need, but participants on past trips have helped with cleanup from natural disasters, built homes, worked in schools, and more.
Save a Child's Heart
Save A Child's Heart treats children suffering from congenital and rheumatic heart disease from around the world who have little access to care in their own countries, regardless of race, religion, gender, nationality, or financial status.
Type of opportunity: Internship
Country: Israel
Length: Various
Ideal for: Medical interns / Anyone 18+
Description: Interns gain professional experience by working with the staff in the Save a Child's Heart's office in Holon, in addition to spending time with the children and mothers. There are various internships available, including: medical (for students who have completed at least one year of medical school), Volunteer-Plus, office management, and social media.
Type of opportunity: Volunteer
Country: Israel
Length: Various
Ideal for: Anyone 18+
Description: Save A Child's Heart treats children suffering from congenital and rheumatic heart disease from around the world who have little access to care in their own countries. Volunteers are responsible for organizing games and activities for the children, as well as acting as a friend and a familiar face. Volunteers are crucial for providing care and emotional support to the kids and their families during their stay in Israel, pre- and post-procedure.
Stand Up
An organisation built on the compassion, willpower and commitment of volunteers, Stand Up opens doors for the Australian Jewish Community to act on social justice.
Type of opportunity: Volunteer
Country: Australia
Length: Varies
Ideal for: Anyone
Description: Stand up has several programs for which they are seeking passionate volunteers in both Sydney and Melbourne. These include: Refugee Partnership Programs aimed at tackling systemic challenges encountered by migrant communities; First Nation Partnership Programs, which have built long term relationships with the communities of Toomelah and Boggabilla, primarily through youth engagement.
The Step Up
The Step Up programme provides life skills and education to children and youth who have fled conflict and violence during a humanitarian crisis. The programme runs in refugee camps or rural villages during the summer and winter holidays, offering children a safe, productive and stimulating environment.
Type of opportunity: Volunteer
Countries: Various, including Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda
Length: Several weeks during the summer
Ideal for: Teachers or youth worker with experience working with children or teens
Description: The Step Up summer camp provides children an educational step up, giving them a chance for a brighter future. Volunteers work together with local staff and teachers to support at-risk children to learn vital life skills, health and hygiene, English language, and community values.
TEN: Tikkun Olam Empowerment Network
The Jewish Agency's TEN is a service-learning program that takes place in Israel and developing regions around the world, in which volunteers participate in an integrated curriculum focusing on Jewish values and community, and engage in a global dialogue on Jewish identity with their peers.
Type of opportunity: Volunteer
Countries: Various
Length: 1-2 weeks / 6 weeks / 3 months / 5 months
Ideal for: Each program is for a different audience, including Israeli young adults, non-Israelis, organized groups, allied healthcare professionals (occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech therapists )
Description: TEN runs volunteer centers in low- and middle-income countries, which give their young volunteers the opportunities to work with local communities and engage in global dialogue, while learning about Jewish values and community.
In addition, TEN sends allied health professionals to communities in Uganda and Ghana for 5 week periods, in order to share knowledge and work with local people.
Tevel
Tevel combats extreme poverty at its roots within subsistence farming villages, which are home to over half of the populations in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. They do this through a holistic approach that addresses interconnected such as agricultural training, community outreach, and livelihood development through small-scale farming. Their Youth Service Program also empowers young people to become changemakers in their communities.
Type of opportunity: Internship/Volunteer
Countries: Zambia, Nepal
Length: 2-4 weeks
Ideal for: Anyone, though some programs require some agricultural knowledge
Description: Tevel volunteer programs in village communities in Zambia and Nepal combine service with study, research and learning, fostering a deeper connection to both community and global. Rooted in the Jewish values of tikkun olam (repairing the world) and social justice, but inspired by contemporary thought and research as well, Tevel's volunteer initiatives provide individuals of all backgrounds the chance to engage in hands-on projects aimed at sustainable development in impoverished communities.
Tevel also has partnerships with the University of Arizona, University of Haifa, and Aardvark that sends participants to village communities in Nepal and Zambia for periods ranging from two weeks to full semesters.