Palms International Volunteering

06/10/2026

Monday 19 October: join returned volunteers Wendy Baker (recently returned from Timor Leste) and Mick Flew (formerly placed in PNG) online to hear what an assignment actually asks of you, and what it gives back.

Free, online, and your questions are welcome.

Register at https://palms.org.au/event/oct-info/

04/10/2026

To every teacher who's volunteered through Palms over the past 60+ years – THANK YOU. 🎓💚

You've taught in classrooms without walls, mentored educators across language barriers, and built education partnerships rooted in respect and solidarity.

You've shown up in remote schools, vocational training centres, and community programmes across the Pacific. You've adapted lesson plans, learned local customs, and worked alongside communities requesting your skills.

This World Teachers' Day, we celebrate YOU.

Teaching opportunities on Ethical Jobs can be found here -https://www.ethicaljobs.com.au/members/palmsaus/volunteer-teachers-and-school-admin-timor-leste-samoa-cambodia-papua-new-guinea?utm_medium=email&utm_source=transactional&utm_campaign=noreply%40ethicaljobs.com.au

02/10/2026

Calling the Palms family. On Sunday 25 October we're gathering for Coastal Connections: a coastal walk from Bondi to Tamarama during Sculpture by the Sea (for those who are interested). Then the main event: afternoon tea with friends, and photos and a 30 year retrospective from the Palms Post archive, followed by Mass at St Anne's North Bondi at 5pm (for those who can stay). Sixty-five years of volunteers, one afternoon together. Register at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DD8J2YV

02/10/2026

If you have ever considered spending a year living simply overseas, not isolated, but volunteering as an integral part of a community - you might like to check out the opportunities here. https://palms.org.au/current-opportunities/

It is not voluntourism. You will be hosted by communities who have explicitly asked for your skills. And Palms will prepare and support you through the process.

Living will be basic: it’s a solidarity placement, not a FIFO consultancy. But it will build genuine relationships and you will have an experience you can never get through ordinary travel.

The final pre travel Orientation Course for the year is on next month - so applying now is perfect to give you time to find the right placement and begin the pre course reading and reflection.

Just a suggestion…

Palms International Volunteering provides long-term, funded international assignments to skilled Australians who volunteer to inspire sustainable development.

30/09/2026

Today - on the International Day of Older Persons - we'd like to celebrate all those who have 'retired' to a new life of possibilities!

If you are ready for your 'third act' - the time of active reinvention, freedom to choose what you want to do, and determination to make the final years of your life full of purpose and meaning - then a Palms placement may well be your path to do that.

We are finalising participants now for our last Orientation Course of the year. Take a look at our website www.palms.org.au. Give us a call. And join us on 19 October for our next Webinar with returnees Wendy Baker (our most recent inspirational 'third actor' from Timor Leste) and Mick Flew who served earlier in his full life in PNG. https://palms.org.au/events/

24/09/2026

Michael has landed. 🇹🇱

Michael Walsh was commissioned in the chapel at the close of his Orientation Course, and he is now in Kasait, Timor-Leste, taking up an assignment as a Human Resources Management Mentor with a local partner organisation.

The preparation came first. Two days on development, race, colonisation and cultural history. Mentoring practice. Risk and child safeguarding. Language and learning. How to tell the story of what he sees with care.

Mentoring, not doing. Building on what is already there. That is how the work lasts after Michael comes home.

His first photos from Dili have already arrived. 📸

Go well, Michael. We're with you.

Could your skills answer a community's request? palms.org.au

20/09/2026

This week our observation is from Patrick Campbell who was placed in the Solomon Islands in 2005 on a building project: “Once you can accept and live with 'Solomon time' then you are able to adapt managerial practices so that they work. The joy of seeing something upon which you have worked so hard come into fruition far outweighs the frustrations.“

That capacity to accept one’s context and work patiently with it is a key learning of Palms volunteers, which can be applied to any attempt to develop a simpler life when returning to Australia.

For more information on our Simplicity September campaign go to www.simplicityseptember.org.au

18/09/2026

11/09/2026

For week 2 of Simplicity September our observation is one from Annemieke Roper in 2005 when she was working as a teacher in Kiribati: “One thing I admire so much about the Kiribati nation is the beauty in simplicity of the lifestyle. If you hurt you cry, if you're happy you laugh. But it’s only through sharing that I was able to peep through windows.

The key to cross cultural relationships is not about always being happy, its not always about giving. The key is sharing. Through sharing you show people something I firmly believe - that we are all vulnerable.”

For more information go to https://simplicityseptember.org.au/