PLEASE READ THIS WEBSITE'S LEGAL INFORMATION NOTICE CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS SITE.

By using this site, you signify you have read and accepted these terms of use. If you do not agree to these terms of use, do not use the site.

The materials in this site are provided "as is" and without warranties of any kind either expressed or implied. To the fullest extent permissible and subject and pursuant to applicable law, VOLUNTEER VISIONS disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

VOLUNTEER VISIONS does not warrant or make any representations regarding the correctness, accuracy, reliability, or otherwise of the materials in this site or the results of their use.

International travel is inherently risky. By becoming a volunteer, you acknowledge and accept these risks and those associated with living and working in developing countries. As a volunteer you must appreciate and understand that some of these activities may be outside of your personal insurance cover. VOLUNTEER VISIONS is not liable (to the maximum extent of the law) for any loss or harm you may suffer, including but not limited to loss caused by:

• :: Delay


• :: Bodily injury or death


• :: Damage to or loss of property


• :: War or terrorism

VOLUNTEER VISIONS reserves the right to use feedback from volunteers for website material.

The VOLUNTEER VISIONS is not liable for any errors or mistakes made by partner organizations. All disputes are governed by the laws of Costa Rica.

This site is presented solely for the purpose of promoting VOLUNTEER VISIONS services. This site is controlled and operated by VOLUNTEER VISIONS from its offices in Playa Samara, Costa Rica. VOLUNTEER VISIONS makes no representation that materials in the site are appropriate or available for us in other locations. Those who choose to access this site from other locations do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws, if and to the extent local law are applicable.

Email Communication

Emails from VOLUNTEER VISIONS staff contain information intended solely for the addressee, which is confidential or private in nature. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or any file attached to this message. Any such unauthorized use, is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received an email from VOLUNTEER VISIONS in error, please notify the sender immediately by e-mail and thereafter delete the original message from your machine. Furthermore, the information contained in the email, and any attachments thereto, is for information purposes only and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and opinions of VOLUNTEER VISIONS. VOLUNTEER VISIONS therefore does not accept liability for any claims, loss or damages of whatsoever nature, arising as a result of the reliance on such information by anyone. Whilst all reasonable steps are taken to ensure the accuracy and integrity of information transmitted electronically and to preserve the confidentiality thereof, VOLUNTEER VISIONS accepts no liability or responsibility whatsoever if information or data is, for whatsoever reason, incorrect, corrupted or does not reach its intended destination.

Cancellation and Refund Policy

The program fee is refundable until 91 days before the first of the month you are due to start your program. This is because VOLUNTEER VISIONS needs to make financial commitments on your behalf prior to the program start date. The 91 days notification is taken from the month you stated on your original application form. If you postpone your trip the refund is only valid until 91 days prior to the 1st of the month you originally intended to volunteer.

Unfortunately for this reason we can make no exceptions. All refunds will be made less the costs incurred in processing the refund such as bank charges.

:: Cancellation 91 days before the first of the month you are due to start your program. If the cancellation is effective 91 days before the program start date, VOLUNTEER VISIONS will refund the total program fee minus the application deposit.

:: Cancellation between 90 to 61 days before the first of the month you are due to start your program. If the cancellation is effective between 90 and 61 days, VOLUNTEER VISIONS will refund 50% of the program fee minus the application deposit.

:: Cancellation between 60 to 31 days before the first of the month you are due to start your program. If the cancellation is effective between 60 days and 31 days from the program start date 25% of the program fee will be refunded minus the application deposit.

:: Cancellation between 30 days before the first of the month you are due to start your program. No refunds will be given if the participant cancels their program between 30 days and the program start date or any time after this date. In the event a participant decides to discontinue his/her program before it is due to end for any reason, there will be no refund.

Participants are solely responsible for all transportation to agreed pick-up point in host destination country, including airfare, taxes, charges, expenses or penalties that might result from any cancellation of the participants program, whether it is cancelled or altered by the participant or VOLUNTEER VISIONS.

Applicants should make sure that they understand VOLUNTEER VISIONS cancellation policy before applying to any of our programs.

All requests for application fee refunds must be faxed or posted to the VOLUNTEER VISIONS with your signature at the bottom. Phone calls and e-mails are not acceptable. You will be notified of VOLUNTEER VISIONS receiving your application for a refund of the application fee within 48 hours. Refunds are only issued on Wednesdays of each week and you would receive confirmation of the refund being issued also. Should you not be emailed in regards to your request the assumption should be made that the request form was not received. VOLUNTEER VISIONS is not responsible for fax or mail that is not received.

VOLUNTEER VISIONS can refund no more than 10% of the total number of application program fees received in any given month. For example, out of 80 application program fees received the first 8 would be automatically refunded. Subsequent refunds are processed in the following month in order of the date they were requested.

If you are not eligible for an application program fee refund please be aware that you can still access any of our programs that you are qualified for, and where spaces are available, within a 6 month period from the date the application program fee payment was received.

We reserve the right to revise the application program fee. All application fee revisions will be announced at least seven days in advance via the website. Please note that the application program fee may not be the same as when you applied. Your application program fee is valid for 6 months from the date you pay it. Your last trip using your fee has to start within two years of the date when the fee was originally paid.

Program fees are due 60 days prior to the 1st of the month volunteers are due to start. Failure to make payment by this time may result in loss of placement.

If you are submitting your reservation deposit within 60 days of your project start date, you will have 5 business days to submit the balance of your program fee. If additional time is required to pay the balance of your program fee, you may request for an extension by e-mailing VOLUNTEER VISIONS at info@volunteervision.org.

Reservation Deposit

Application feesReservation deposits paid to VOLUNTEER VISIONS directly are only refundable if VOLUNTEER VISIONS is unable to place you in your requested first, second or third choice program due to reasons and circumstances beyond VOLUNTEER VISIONS control. Program feesReservation deposits paid through VOLUNTEER VISIONS by means of bank or wire transfer or PayPal will need to have the transaction costs covered by the payee. The reservation deposit required to reserve a project for a specific date is $95.00 USD. We reserve the right to revise the program feereservation deposit. All program feereservation deposit revisions will be announced at least seven days in advance via the website. Program fees are due 60 days prior to the 1st of the month volunteers are due to start. Failure to make payment by this time may result in loss of placement.

Expedited Application Process

VOLUNTEER VISIONS can process last minute applications as long as they are received at least 7 days before the project start date. There is no extra fee that is charged in this expedited process but the applicant must provide the full program fee when submitting his/her application.

Payment Transaction Fees

All applicants will be responsible for paying for all proccessing fees associated with PayPal and all transaction fees associated with bank transfers. The applicant understands that the PayPal processing fee can be up to 3.9% of the total program fee and that bank transfer fees can be up to $50 per each transaction.

Privacy Policy

Information on VOLUNTEER VISIONS' application forms and extra details forms online is collected solely for internal use within VOLUNTEER VISIONS and its partner organizations. Your e-mail and other details will be passed onto other volunteers who are in the same group as you, so that you can make contact before you meet; if you would prefer that this did not happen, please let us know.

We gather certain statistical information about visitors to our website, including IP addresses, browser type, ISP, referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data. We use this information, which does not identify individual users, to analyze trends, to administer the site, to track users' movements around the site and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. This data is collected solely for internal use within VOLUNTEER VISIONS

Online payments are processed through a secure third party site, and VOLUNTEER VISIONS does not receive sensitive information such as credit card information.