---
title: The Myth of the Lone Volunteer
description: The classic volunteer story has one hero. Alessio's has a whole team, and he says that's exactly what made it work.
image: https://humanavolunteers.org/hubfs/Blogs-2_Alessio.jpg
---

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# The Myth of the Lone Volunteer

![Humana Volunteers](https://humanavolunteers.org/hs-fs/hubfs/humana%20volunteers%E2%80%99%20THOUGHTS%20(1).jpg?width=120&height=120&name=humana%20volunteers%E2%80%99%20THOUGHTS%20(1).jpg)

Oct 29, 2026, 3:50:00 PM

The classic volunteering-abroad story has one main character. One person, one backpack, one life-changing trip, usually narrated in the first person singular.

Alessio's story doesn't work like that. When he talks about his ten months in the program, **the word he keeps coming back to isn't "I." It's "we."**

> **"I met a lot of people who wanted the same things I did,"** he says, **"and I shared daily life with them in a way I never had before."**

---

 

### **Ten months, one team**

That's not a side effect of the program, it's how it's built. **Volunteers don't train alone and they don't travel alone.** They spend three months at Lindersvold as a team: studying, cooking, cleaning, planning, disagreeing and sorting it out. Then they head to their projects together.

It sounds simple. In practice, it's one of the most demanding parts of the experience. **You can't walk away from a bad day when the person you clashed with is also the person you're making dinner with.** For Alessio, that was the point. Working towards the same goal, through the good moments and the bad ones, is what he remembers most.

### **Different conditions, more in common**

During his six months on the project, Alessio lived in a reality very different from his own. A new culture, a new rhythm, new ways of doing almost everything.

What stayed with him wasn't the distance between his life and the lives of the people he worked alongside. It was the opposite. **"We live in different conditions," he says, "but we're more similar than we think."**

It's a quieter realization than the ones that usually make it into volunteering stories. **It's also far more useful than any sense of having come to the rescue.**

### **The weight is shared**

Asked what he liked most, Alessio describes being a small part of a bigger mechanism.

> **"Everything you do is meaningful, and the weight doesn't rest on you alone. It's shared between everyone you're working with."**

That's the part the lone-volunteer story always gets wrong. **Development work isn't carried by one person who flew in.** It's carried by local teams, communities, coordinators and volunteers, each doing their piece. Seeing yourself as one part of that, and not the center of it, is a relief more than a demotion.

And it leaves a mark. **"Once you feel the power of the group,"** Alessio says, **"you become more optimistic about the future. That's impossible to ignore."**

**Thank you, Alessio, for reminding us whose story this really is.**

If you'd rather do this with a team than on your own, this is where you start.

I want to be a Humana Volunteer

##### [![Learning Before Teaching](https://humanavolunteers.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog-5_Gloria_Tommaso.jpg?width=520&height=294&name=Blog-5_Gloria_Tommaso.jpg) Humana Volunteers • Oct 29, 2026, 4:22:29 PM Learning Before Teaching 2 min read](https://humanavolunteers.org/blog/first-month-volunteering-in-india)

##### [![What Volunteers Actually Mean When They Say It](https://humanavolunteers.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Blogs-4-1.jpg?width=520&height=294&name=Blogs-4-1.jpg) Humana Volunteers • Oct 29, 2026, 4:12:55 PM What Volunteers Actually Mean When They Say It 4 min read](https://humanavolunteers.org/blog/finding-purpose-through-volunteering-abroad)

##### [![Before You Do Anything, Arrive](https://humanavolunteers.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog-3_Cormac.jpg?width=520&height=294&name=Blog-3_Cormac.jpg) Humana Volunteers • Oct 29, 2026, 4:01:18 PM Before You Do Anything, Arrive 2 min read](https://humanavolunteers.org/blog/blog-humana-web-2026/first-month-volunteering-in-zambia)

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