Donating money to charity is vital, but increasingly people want to give their time. Rosita Bolandlooks at one new way of doing this

We probably noticed it first in this country after the 2004 tsunami: people wanted a "hands-on" involvement with aid work. For decades, Irish people have donated money to NGOs such as Trócaire, and various non-profit charitable organisations, leaving it up to those bodies to administer, carry out and support the aid work needed on the ground.

After the tsunami, many people volunteered to go and work for a short time in one of the affected countries. Some organised the trips themselves. Others linked up with tour operators such as responsibletravel.com, which combined holidays with beach-clearing, boat-building, or house reconstruction. Many of these projects have since wound down. However, due to the huge media coverage of the tsunami at the time, volunteering by untrained people to do short-term aid work in developing countries is something that has continued.

Earlier this year, an Irish organisation, Zest4Kidz (www.zest4kidz.com), started leading volunteer trips out of Ireland to visit what they term the "forgotten children". Zest4Kidz is a non-profit Christian organisation with charitable status. It was founded by husband and wife Stuart and Maggie Wilson, who also run ZestLife, a company that focuses on motivational corporate and personal development coaching.

Among the trips they organised this year or are planning for next year are: a football camp in Bosnia with the aim of bringing Serbian and Muslim children together; visits to orphanages in Georgia; working with child soldiers in Uganda, who have suffered rape, kidnap and torture; and children in Azerbaijan who live as refugees in railway carriages. All the trips are short, mostly between two and four days.

Those going on each trip fundraise both for themselves to go and for the Zest4Kidz psychotherapists and psychologists who accompany them. To date, there have been two kinds of groups volunteering to go on these trips: corporate team-building groups, many of whom are clients of ZestLife; and individuals who go for reasons of personal development.

"We're not doing NGO work on these trips," Stuart Wilson explains. "The kids have a terrific time for the couple of days we are there. It can be very emotional for the people making the trip, so we have a debrief at the end of every day, with trained psychotherapists."

ON A RECENT trip to Georgia (formerly part of the USSR), the group visited two orphanages. during their time there they took the children on a trip to McDonald's, spent time playing with them, took them to a theme park, and had a barbecue. The Zest staff worked with the carers at the orphanage. The excess money from that trip was used to buy a large new oven for the orphanage kitchen to replace a small old one, and to replace rotting windows. They also link with local groups, to sustain the projects on an ongoing basis.

One of the people who has been out with Zest4Kidz is John Ryan, managing director of a company that makes industrial tape. He went to Bosnia, where a football camp was organised between Serbian and Muslim children.

"After 25 years in business, you cotton on that it's not all about personal success. When you give something back, that's personal success," he says, explaining his reasons for going.

"If you connect kids and make them understand that everyone is the same, you allow them to develop. With the football camp, hopefully it was allowing the kids to build a little bridge between each other. It was beautiful to see their little faces light up. It was life-changing for me.

"Most charities tend to create dependencies. People in Africa are used to getting stuff all the time - food aid, whatever it might be. It's not dissimilar to social welfare. Our objective is to provide people with a way of connecting with other people, not to give them things."

Ciara Kearney is a freelance management consultant, who's been on two trips so far, one to Bosnia and one to Georgia. "I spend a lot of time in the corporate world. What I do is about making money - I'm not giving anything back," she says. "I went on those trips because I wanted to give, but I ended up getting so much back. It's possible to go because you don't have to give up your job, as the trips are only for a few days."

Jo Donovan is a HR manager at Citrix Systems, a software development company. She went on the Georgian trip. "I had always donated to charity, but there was nothing personal about it. Prior to my going to Georgia, I was quite sceptical as to what we could do for those kids in a few days. But when we were there, we realised what they most wanted was attention and time, and we spent all our time with them. We left things behind - we painted murals over their beds."

Donovan's company, like many others, offers occasional corporate team-building events. "Mostly a seminar in the morning, golfing in the afternoon, and then drinking. It's a lovely day out, but the night is over before you know it. I'd definitely be recommending these trips as an alternative. It would be much tougher, but it would be much more fulfilling."

But however well meaning, is it really helpful for untrained people to arrive into a new culture for a few days, to work with children who are often both vulnerable and traumatised, and then depart? And what about the ethics of a team-bonding corporate away trip, visiting children in prisons and orphanages and refugee camps, where the overall idea is for company members to work more efficiently together on return?

"We go out with big hearts. What the kids want is love and attention above everything else," Wilson responds.

The company's mission statement says: "We believe that it is our moral duty to at least show these children that they are not forgotten and to give them the emotional tools to cope with issues like abandonment, abuse and neglect. We know that if we don't make this happen then nobody else will and we hope to share this responsibility. This creates the ultimate win/win for the children and our volunteers.

"Most of our volunteers are highly successful people and are top achievers in their field. Our trips give them the opportunity to marry their business achievements with a sense of fulfilment and purpose that is breathtaking and life changing."

'I DON'T KNOW anything about Zest4Kidz at all, so my comments about these kind of trips are general," says Eamonn Meehan, deputy director of Trócaire.

"There is an increasing trend in this kind of trip, and it is not necessarily a bad thing, but it needs to be properly organised. In general, I do feel that anybody who chooses to become involved with these kind of trips needs to be extremely cautious. These are highly sensitive situations. Children in orphanages or child soldiers are extremely vulnerable, and probably traumatised.

"By and large, this is an area for trained professionals only. And all those going on trips like that should be asked to produce police clearance.

"There is the trend of the gap-year, or going out to teach in a developing world for a time. My view of many of these trips is that they are more to do with individuals and self-help than providing a genuine contributions to the people they come in contact with. The time period they are there for is too short, and they have no skills. A lot of the Zest4Kidz trips are only days. It's very difficult to make a valid contribution in two or three days."

For further information on Zest4kidz and Trócaire, see www.zest4kidz.com and www.trocaire.org