By: Justin Powell
All of us are ready to connect with others, travel, and have some fun. But we also want to do it safely and make sure we put the pandemic firmly behind us. The past 14 months at Youthlinc we have been carefully monitoring what travel, especially internationally, would look like for our capstone international humanitarian trips.
We have adopted a formula to help determine if travel is possible, safe, and ethical for our Service Year volunteers this summer. The good news is that YES, some teams can travel this year!
The formula we are using to determine if a Service Year team can travel or not is:
Country Is Open without Arduous Restrictions + Community Spread is Under Control Abroad+ Youthlincers Are Vaccinated = YES FOR TRAVEL!
If any one of the three variables above are not met, then the answer is NO TRAVEL this summer.
Our goal is to be able to provide a capstone experience to as many people as possible. This helps fulfill our mission and do some good in the world.
Youthlinc is asking all participants to be vaccinated to travel this year. The reason is simple: Safety.
For the past 21 years safety has been the number one priority when traveling. We take our responsibility of caring for our young humanitarians, many of whom are minors, very seriously. We want to ensure that they are as safe as possible.
We also care deeply for the individuals abroad who we work with. We want them to be safe, as well.
A vaccine is the best tool in the toolbox at the moment to ensure the highest level of safety for team members. We do not want to risk our volunteers getting sick and/or stuck in quarantine abroad. We do not want to spread disease among the communities we work in either. Until there is herd immunity in each country we travel to, individuals who are unable to or decline to be vaccinated are encouraged to travel in a future year or are can consider taking part with one of our new local capstone experiences.
We are excited to announce that we will send teams to Jamaica, Kenya, Peru, Nepal, and Costa Rica (a new site we are opening to accommodate everyone who wants to travel with us this year). If you are interested in joining, you still can! Visit www.youthlinc.org/summer-2021 to do so!
