Voluntary work in Brazil

More and more Brazilians are engaging in voluntary work.
There is no official agency to coordinate the voluntary work, so there are not official statistics about the total number of voluntary associations or volunteers; this page explains the difficulty in estimating the total figures (several entities realize voluntary work, but are not labeled as such), and calculates that by the end of 1995 the total number of volunteers was about 4 million.
Since then, the number certainly grew by very much. Corporations are encouraging employees to volunteer; check the next link for a corporate manual of volunteering. This page mentions the results of a survey indicating that 54% of Brazilian youngs would like to volunteer, but only 7% are actually engaged (leaving plenty of room for future growth).

The Yahoo! Brazil category lists only a few of the Volunteer organizations in Brazil.
Some of the largest organizations in Brazil are:
voluntarios.com.br In Portuguese only. You can search for volunteer oportunities by Brazilian city (in the first field of their page), by district (for Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo only) and by field of work (third field, default is for All Fields).
Volunteer Portal Some pages in English. Click the map to search for opportunities by State.


Volunteer opportunities for foreigners
Foreigners who undertake paid work in Brazil must have the proper visa. Check out: Home > Government > Laws > Immigration.
The participation in voluntary work, does not require a visa. The subject is covered by Law nr. 9608.
This very short law determines that:
- the voluntary service is a non-paid work, which won't create any labor relationship betweeen the volunteers and the institutions (this article prevents potential lawsuits)
- volunteer and institution must sign a term of agreement, describing the object of the service and its conditions
- volunteer may be indemnified by expenses effectively incurred during the voluntary service
- under specific conditions, the government may help paying a financial aid to volunteers (ex-convicts, unemployed youngsters, etc).
There's no prohibition to foreigner voluntary work.

These sites are helpful in finding opportunities for foreigners:
Volunteer opportunities Specific openings.
Iko Poran Help you find individual or group placements. Offers plenty of information on this subject.



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