This Thursday, International Student Volunteers will be hosting an informational event for students interested in an overseas trip for volunteer work as well as a tour through a country of the participants choosing.

Hourly informational sessions will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Lake Superior A room in the Oakland Center.

Kahlo Hopper, ISV’s campus representative, will be conducting Thursday’s meetings. Students must be 18 years old to apply; Hopper said students of all majors apply to go on the annual trips.

“ISV is looking for students who are willing to give and willing to learn,” said Hopper. “We ask students to write briefly on their application about why they would be a suitable applicant for the ISV program.”

After several Oakland students applied and attended the summer trips last year, ISV has decided to return to OU to reopen the opportunity. ISV will be taking applications from students interested in traveling during Thursday’s sessions.

Hopper says these applications are non-committal and purely expressions of student interest. ISV is limited to 50 students per departure date for each country, so students are advised to turn in their application promptly.

“Students who hand in their applications at the information meetings will be given precedence over any mailed in at a later date,” said Hopper.

Students selected will travel with students from over 140 universities to Australia, New Zealand, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Thailand, Africa and Costa Rica to participate in volunteer work and adventure tours.

Most students who apply will travel for four weeks, but can choose to attend from two weeks to three months.

Volunteer work is hands-on and divided into social community work and conservation work. Community work would include building homes for refugees, improving conditions for impoverished villages and teaching children English; students doing conservation work would be working with endangered species or working to rehabilitate the ecosystem.

Students will work alongside professionally trained project leaders to accomplish these tasks during the first two weeks of the trip.

Following the volunteer work, participants will be involved in a two week adventure through the student’s chosen country with the opportunity to, among other activities, go waterfall rappelling, glacier climbing or jungle kayaking.

Adventure tours will be lead by trained professionals.

Nencho Teller, who participated in ISV’s program to Australia, was able to scuba dive in coral reefs and go white water rafting.

“I had a great time planting trees and doing land rehabilitation projects, which was challenging but rewarding,” said Teller. She said she recommends the ISV trips to any interested students.

ISV, a nonprofit organization, takes over 4,000 students on programs each year. Since ISV is not for profit, students may be able to offset some of the program costs through tax deductable sponsorship donations through the community.

More information on the program can be found at www.isvonline.org