Where the Socially-Conscious Travelers Go

BUD PHILBROOK wanted a conventional honeymoon. His then-fianc'ee, Michelle Gran, wanted something different. They compromised by spending a week at Disney World and a week working in a rural village in Guatemala. Their unusual trip planted the seed for an international development organization: Global Volunteers. Established by the couple seven years ago, the program resembles a mini-Peace Corps for people who can't spend large blocks of time away from families, mortgages, and work demands. Unlike the two-year commitment normally required by the Peace Corps, Global Volunteers requires only a two- or three-week commitment.

Volunteers come to rural villages to be ``servant learners,'' says Mr. Philbrook, Global Volunteers' president and founder. They work closely with local ``host'' volunteer groups, learn about the culture, and do only what the villagers want done.

Projects vary widely, depending on what a particular village deems most important. Volunteers might build schoolhouses, teach English, dig latrines, or provide health care to women. Often as many as five projects occur at once. Each new Global Volunteers group picks up where the previous group left off.

The Minnesota-based organization sponsors 18 trips a year to seven developing countries - Mexico, Tanzania, Western Samoa, Guatemala, India, Jamaica, and Paraguay. They plan to include Vietnam and Eastern Europe in future trips.

``There won't be any beaches on these trips,'' says Philbrook. ``It's a vacation in the sense that you're vacating - getting away from it all. But we try to provide up-front information. ... We let people know what the circumstances are.'' If the organization believes a particular trip is too taxing for a volunteer, they suggest another location.

Volunteers pay their own way, and the $1,100 to $3,200 price tag is tax-deductible. Global Volunteers often pay less than the average tourist would pay because tourists would have more lush accommodations. Learning from local people

Morris Burnham, an accountant from Miami, was looking for a different kind of vacation when he read about Global Volunteers in a newspaper. He signed up for a project in Jamaica. Mr. Burnham had been to the Caribbean before as a tourist, but what impressed him the most about this trip was the relationship volunteers developed with the local people. ``As a tourist in a tourist area you don't engage real people,'' he says.

Jacki Bilek, a volunteer from Minneapolis, agrees. ``Before I traveled with Global Volunteers all I knew of India was Gandhi and Mother Theresa,'' she says. After spending several weeks in Sevoor, India, where she helped build a bus shelter for the community, she says she now has no desire to travel as a tourist and see tourist sights.

The idea for Global Volunteers didn't appear to Gran and Philbrook overnight. They went to Guatemala under the auspices of a group Philbrook knew from his work in the Minnesota state legislature, circumstances most people couldn't duplicate. Philbrook says it was such a valuable experience that they thought more people should have the same opportunity.

In looking into organizations to join, the couple found only church or government-affiliated programs.

``We thought this ought to be nonsectarian,'' Philbrook explains. We thought it better if people wore their faith in their hearts rather than on their sleeves.''

At each cite, the volunteers hook up with a native host organization, which provides interpreters and advisers - individuals who help bridge the gap between the volunteers and the local people.

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