Location
  • Vietnam
    • Ho Chi Minh City
Length
1 to 24 weeks

Program Details

Language
English
Timeframe
Short Term Spring Break Summer Winter Year Round
Housing
Guesthouse
Groups
Medium Group (16-30)
Travel Type
Budget Family Older Travelers Solo Women

Pricing

Starting Price
300
Price Details
Fully hosted experience from only $300 for 1 week - this includes accommodation, meals, airport pick-up, orientation and 24/7 in-country support.
What's Included
Accommodation Some Activities Meals
What's Not Included
Airfare Travel Insurance Visa
May 01, 2024
Dec 09, 2024
52 travelers are looking at this program

About Program

Trusted by 136,000+ volunteers, IVHQ offers the world's #1 rated volunteer programs in Vietnam and 50+ destinations worldwide.

For the past 6 years, we've won the "Top Volunteer Abroad Provider Award" from GoOverseas, so you can trust that you're in the safest hands with IVHQ in Vietnam.

Our affordable projects start from $18/day for your accommodation, meals, airport pick-up, project placement and local support. Projects run year-round, with durations from 1-24 weeks. Choose from 5 projects, ranging from Special Needs Care to Teaching to Medical in the vibrant and bustling Ho Chi Minh City, known for its cultural landmarks and cosmopolitan atmosphere. Plus, you’ll stay with other like-minded, impact-focused travelers from around the world (private room options available).

With IVHQ’s superior pre-departure support services, you’ll gain exclusive access to your own Volunteer Travel Specialist, comprehensive preparation tools and volunteer training before you leave home.

Video and Photos

Program Highlights

  • Cheapest volunteer programs from $18/day for your accommodation, meals, airport pick-up, project placement & local support.
  • Volunteer for 1-24 weeks, year round start dates most Mondays.
  • 15+ years experience & only B Corp certified volunteer travel organization.
  • Get free changes up to 14 days before you start with our flexible booking policy.
  • Affordable way to earn college credit - gain 5 credits for only US$500!

Popular Programs

Teaching English Project

The aim of this project is to provide assistance to college students in Ho Chi Minh City who are needing to increase their English fluency so they can further their studies in Business Communication, Nursing and Public Relations. This project is well suited to volunteers who are passionate about education and are excited about the opportunity to use the English language to help enhance the career prospects for students in Vietnam.

Medical Project

As a volunteer on our Medical project, you will have the opportunity to experience a new culture, while developing your medical knowledge by gaining an insight into the Vietnamese healthcare system. This is a unique opportunity to gain a greater understanding of differences between medical systems in developed and developing countries. This project is well suited to volunteers on pre-medical and medical students, or those qualified in a relevant medical field.

Special Needs Care Project

As a Special Needs Care volunteer in Vietnam, you will be working within hospitals and community clinics in Ho Chi Minh City, providing support to children and young people, some who have been affected by Agent Orange. This project is best suited to caring and hard-working individuals who are passionate about increasing access to care for young people living with a range of intellectual and physical challenges.

Food Outreach Project

Your role on this project is to provide assistance to a local ‘Soup Kitchen’ to enable them to provide over 500 lunches daily to people from various backgrounds including poor elderly, low-income earners, disabled, students and children. Poverty is still widespread throughout Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh has a large population of people who are unable to afford regular nutritional meals.

Program Reviews

4.96 Rating
based on 69 reviews
  • 5 rating 95.65%
  • 4 rating 4.35%
  • 3 rating 0%
  • 2 rating 0%
  • 1 rating 0%
  • Impact 4.75
  • Support 4.95
  • Fun 4.9
  • Value 4.95
  • Safety 4.95
Showing 33 - 40 of 69 reviews
Default avatar
Andy
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Amazing Medical Experience in Vietnam

Simply an amazing experience! I was only in Vietnam for two weeks, but I worked with so many amazing volunteers and staff members and saw so many beautiful areas in and around the city. The program coordinators here are amazing! Not only are they good at their jobs, providing safe, meaningful volunteer opportunities, but they also are great people to spend time with and get to know. I had high expectations coming into the program, but IVHQ and Green Lion still managed to exceed those expectations! I will definitely be traveling with them again in the future. :)

For the medical placement specifically, just come in with an open mind ready to observe. I learned a lot just from watching the doctors, nurses, and therapists. I even got to watch a couple of surgeries which were very interesting!

What would you improve about this program?
Maybe have some more optional group activities in the afternoons/evenings. Most of the time, volunteers just organize on their own, but it wouldn’t hurt to have some planned group outings.
96 people found this review helpful.
Response from International Volunteer HQ - IVHQ

Andy, thanks for taking the time to provide an insight into your 2 week experience on the IVHQ Vietnam - HCMC program. It's great to hear you were able to see the beautiful sights of Ho Chi Minh City while also contributing to the local volunteer projects. I am stoked to hear your expectations were exceeded and that the local team welcomed you into their family with their amazing hospitality. We can't wait to have you back volunteering with IVHQ again some time. Sean - IVHQ Program Manager.

Default avatar
Bowen
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Loved it!!! Life time experience

Before this opportunity, I already have a lot of experience working with disability groups and with children by being a Community Support Work at Saskatchewan Abilities Council, and I really enjoyed the work I did with them. This volunteer trip was a great experience to see the differences in mental health support between developed countries and developing countries. It gave me a better picture of how I can utilize my skills to support diverse groups. I was surprising that there is so many skills I used at work are from my study at school. This industry is for sure a place of interest for me in the future.
Overall, I enjoyed this experience very much. First, this hospital is way more organized than I thought, due to language barrier, the hospital specifically signed coordinators who speak English to work with us. Second, I was able to walk out of my comfort zone to work at a developing environment. Most importantly, I was able to use the skills and knowledge I so far learned at school at real work place, it made me enjoy the program at school more and made me more certain that this is the area I want to study and work for in the future. I learned so much from this trip.

87 people found this review helpful.
Response from International Volunteer HQ - IVHQ

Thanks for taking the time to provide this review Bowen! It's excellent to hear you were able to use the skills and knowledge you have gained from your studies on the IVHQ Vietnam Special Needs Care project - I am sure your efforts were greatly appreciated by the staff and students. We can't wait to have you back on another IVHQ program!!! Sean - IVHQ Program Manager.

Default avatar
Joy
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Food Outreach, Vietnam

Overall, it was a pleasant experience. The local staff and my IVHQ support was great. The program itself Food Outreach did not met my expectations. The local team doesn't have its own budget for this project so they have partnered with another local organisation that is running a soup kitchen. We were there just to give them a hand on whatever it is, that was needed and mostly spent our time cleaning and scrubbing walls. All other programs I heard was good. The local team was very supportive though with everything. Food and accommodation was good. The coordinator and their manager was excellent and will do everything for you to help in whatever issues you might have. I shall surely do it again with them but maybe on a different program. Overall... good.

68 people found this review helpful.
Response from International Volunteer HQ - IVHQ

Hi Joy, thanks for your review and it's great to hear you meet like minded people on the IVHQ Vietnam program. We clearly mention in our project description on the website that volunteers will be placed at a local Soup Kitchen. Help is needed anyway for this placement, and I am sure it was greatly appreciated the volunteer work you did. Cleaning is a big part of the project, but I am sure you also got to help with plenty of food preparation and serving. We look forward to you joining your next IVHQ program. Sean - IVHQ Program Manager.

Default avatar
Lisa
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

I would recommend IVHQ to anyone looking to travel on a budget

I am beyond impressed by IVHQ and their service to organizing and assisting international volunteers. Many aspects drew me to IVHQ including there being no application fee, the variety of programs, and the reasonable fees. There are so many destinations through IVHQ, just about anywhere you would want to travel has a volunteer program! I attended the 2-week program in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and volunteered with the medical project. This program was the most popular in my volunteer group, for good reason. Working in the rehabilitative hospital was an amazing opportunity for me as a Kinesiology undergraduate student. The hospital staff was kind, informative, and appreciative of the IVHQ volunteers. We were challenged on a daily basis, and constantly learning so many new things about the healthcare system in Vietnam. The daily routine of waking up around 7:00 am and returning to our accommodation around 4:00 pm made for long volunteer days, but they were worth all of the time spent. The accommodation was comfortable, the food offered was delicious, and the facilities were both clean and well functioning. Overall, this trip was a great time and the staff of IVHQ did an amazing job at facilitating this positive volunteer experience for me.

If you did this all over again, what's one thing you would change?
I would stay for at least 3 weeks to make a bigger impact at your volunteer placement.
77 people found this review helpful.
Response from International Volunteer HQ - IVHQ

Hi Lisa, thank you for taking the time to provide this informative review. It's great to hear you were able to gain insight into the Vietnamese medical system which challenged you and provided lots of learnings. I am stoked to hear you were impressed by our wide range of destinations and projects, and we can't wait to have you back to volunteer again some time. Sean - IVHQ Program Manager.

Default avatar
Alicia
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Best experience I've ever had!

This was a great experience! I was a part of the "Teaching English" program in Vietnam and I learned so much. The local team was very accommodating and the people I met will be friends I will have for the rest of my life. The people in Vietnam are some of the most welcoming and kind people I've ever met. People would say hi to me on the streets and ask if they could practice their English with me on the bus! I had the opportunity to travel on the weekends and found some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. I recommend the waterfalls in Da Lat, walking at night in Hoi An, kayaking through Ninh Binh, going to as many pagodas as possible, taking a cruise in Ha Long Bay, and seeing the floating market on the Mekong Delta!
I highly recommend Vietnam!!

If you did this all over again, what's one thing you would change?
I would do this program for longer! My trip wasn't long enough and I feel like I could have made a bigger impact if I would have stayed a few more weeks.
66 people found this review helpful.
Response from International Volunteer HQ - IVHQ

It's so wonderful to hear you enjoyed your time in Vietnam, Alicia! Your contribution to the program was appreciated so much, and we hope to see you again soon. :) Sean - IVHQ Program Manager.

Default avatar
Jordan
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Vietnam. LOVE.

Honestly one of the best things I have EVER done. My time with IVHQ was the perfect blend of travel, service, experience, and relationship building. 10/10 would recommend. I loved every minute of my time in the hospital, whether it was in surgery, or doing wound care, or interacting with patients. I had ample free time to travel with new friends, and I think I made the right decision to come alone - I met so many cool people! I would recommend going longer that a week, longer than two even, if you can manage it. The most rewarding component of the trip was the knowledge that I had really gotten to know Ho Chi Minh City and establish real relationships. I would also recommend utilizing all the resources that IVHQ offers, they helped us plan some cool things last minute because of their connections - they usually know what they're talking about. Very worth the cost, although I did do the Vietnam program which is a more affordable one.

What would you improve about this program?
There could be better overnight support, the rules are quite strict and I could see some incidents that would reflect badly on the organization coming up just because they don't want to deal with too many situations. But overall, an amazing experience!
74 people found this review helpful.
Response from International Volunteer HQ - IVHQ

Hi Jordan, thanks for your review and I am stoked to hear you had an excellent time on the IVHQ Vietnam Program. We can't wait to have you on more of our programs :) Sean - IVHQ Program Manager.

Default avatar
Tamarra
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Vietnam volunteering

The volunteering trip was super rewarding as I was able to meet some amazing people from around the world and share the experience with working with the local team who were all so helpful and kind. Everything from the process of booking the trip as well as the actual organisation when arriving in vietnam was so easy and quick, as well as the accommodation being super clean and tidy. Everything was well planned plus allowed us to have time to explore the city for ourselves with the help of the team giving us advice on places to visit and the best ways to travel to places. The placement options were diverse, and having done the food outreach it was well established for volunteers to work and interact with the locals. I would definitely recommend IVHQ as it truly gave a very rewarding and memorable experience.

73 people found this review helpful.
Default avatar
Angela
4/5
Yes, I recommend this program

volunteer at any age

I recently volunteered teaching English in Ho Chi Min City..the city itself is such an experience, the heat, the smells, the motorbikes! What I enjoyed most about the volunteering is being involved with the local people, helping them learn English, making an effort myself to speak the language (and practice it on the helpful and lovely local cafe staff, students and volunteer co-ordinators, I think they had more fun than we did helping us speak the language), meeting fellow volunteers from all over the world and the supportive environment of the local co-ordinators. I did get sick while I was there and the Program Co-ordinator and the kitchen staff were so lovely in providing me with ginger tea and food that would help me. I was hesitant at first about taking the leap due to my age, not being in my 20's or 30's anymore, however, there were a number of volunteers my age and older as well as many volunteers in their 20's, so I needn't have worried. All up, a good experience and the culture week element is helpful and worth doing.

67 people found this review helpful.

Questions & Answers

For sure, all ages welcome, I volunteered with families, seniors, young adults and mature adults 😊