Dr. Leela V. Raju, an ophthalmologist, remembers the transformation in the young child she treated in India. He came into the clinic crying from the pain after a failed corneal transplant, and Raju operated on him to restore his eye.

“The next day, he could see a little more around him,” says Raju, 34, a corneal specialist with the UPMC Eye Center in Oakland. “It was like a totally different child. He had an idea of who was talking to him, and he could see the images. That gives me a great deal of gratification.”

Morgantown, W.Va. native Raju, whose parents are from India, takes an annual weeklong trip to the Goutami Eye Institute in Rajahmundry, India, to volunteer her services as a physician, while staying with nearby relatives. More than 60 percent of the adult and child patients she sees in India are financially needy, and the medical treatment can be lifesaving, Raju says.

“They might not have had access to that care at all,” Raju says. “It does make me appreciate everything that we have here. ... It also makes me think that you can do a lot of great work without having a lot of it ... equipment.”

People driven by altruism and a desire to impact lives look to volunteer rather than just tour on vacation. The term “voluntouring” has evolved to mean traveling to another country, or even within the United States, to offer volunteer services for people and animals in need.

Author Ken Budd describes this type of travel in his new memoir, “The Voluntourist: A Six-Country Tale of Love, Loss, Fatherhood, Fate, and Singing Bon Jovi in Bethlehem.”

Budd — who lives in Fairfax County, Va., outside of Washington D.C. — has taken six voluntourism trips, including one to New Orleans nine months after Hurricane Katrina. He also went to China, Kenya, Costa Rica, Ecuador and the Palestinian territories on various humanitarian missions. And yes, one night in the West Bank, people from many different countries erupted into singing “Livin' on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi.

“There's an intangible quality to these trips,” says Budd, 46, editor of AARP The Magazine. “You're making connections with people from other cultures. They're learning about you, and you're learning about them. This really destroys stereotypes. It's a real ripple effect.”

Some people who go on trips are professionals, like doctors. Others are everyday people who just want to help a humanitarian effort, Budd says. They work hard during their trips.

“It's not really a vacation; it really is work,” he says. “You have your weekend free and evenings free, but you're pretty much working most of the day.”

Going on a voluntourism trip — whether it's an unofficial, lone venture or an organized group through a foundation — gives people a chance to make a difference in a manageable amount of time, he says.

“Most of us can't take two years to join the Peace Corps,” Budd says. “This is a way to do a teeny bit of good in a short time.”

Erin Butkovic, 38, of Shaler, took weeklong treks in 2009 and 2010 to Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah. At the giant animal sanctuary and adoption facility, Butkovic and fellow volunteers from Ohio Township-based Animal Friends walked the dogs, socialized and cared for the cats and provided other services — and stayed on the Best Friends campus in the guest cottages and cabins.

Best Friends offers many different tasks, and volunteers can do whichever ones they want, says Butkovic, who worked with some of Michael Vick's recovering pit bulls during her 2010 trip.

“The vacation is what you make of it,” she says. “To me, it just felt so amazing to be able to help animals. Just getting that chance felt so good ... you're really helping out.”

Butkovic did the same kind of work at Best Friends that she does here at Animal Friends, but the opportunity to go across the country and do the work was exciting, she says.

Kimberly Bennett, 24, of Shadyside, just got back to Pittsburgh after spending three months near Leon, Nicaragua. Bennett — who is attending both law school and graduate school in international development at the University of Pittsburgh — was helping a team of volunteers at the Leon-based La Isla Foundation research a cause for a chronic kidney disease that has sickened many men in Nicaragua. A sugarcane factory where many of the sick people worked was a main suspect, says Bennett, a Wexford native. She would work all day Monday through Friday, then do fun, touristy activities on the weekends.

“For the rest of my life, I hope to be able to do something that would make a positive change ... in an underprivileged community,” she says. “I really liked the work, and making a positive difference in these people's lives.”

Dr. Francis Schneck, a pediatric urologist at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, says that his many trips to Africa to volunteer with sick children through the International Volunteers in Urology have been moving and gratifying.

He provides medical care and surgery for children with urological issues and injuries, including one boy who had a fractured pelvis that disconnected his urethra from his bladder.

Schneck — who visits Senegal, Ghana and Zambia annually — teaches the local doctors in Africa, who don't have the specialized training in pediatric urology, how to do the medical procedures. He has seen needy children with rare, serious conditions like bladder exstrophy, where the bladder forms outside of the body.

“I think it's a fulfillment of what I like to do,” says Schneck, who is the attending physician and director for the pediatric urology residency program at the hospital. “I like going there because (doctors) are extremely hungry for knowledge and how we do things.

“Once you're scrubbed in ... and you're with other doctors and anesthesiologists, it's really not so different from anywhere else,” says Schneck, 51, of Mt. Lebanon. ‘It's adventurous. ... You never know what situation you're going to be in.”

To get the most out of “voluntour” trips, Budd recommends keeping your expectations real: You can't change the world, but you can impact the lives of whom you work with. Also, remember that you are the tourist, and let go of any expectation that things will be done the way you do them at home.

Budd says that his humanitarian work has changed his perspective on life. Frustrating parts of life like traffic jams don't bother him as much, and he has a global network of contacts.

Kellie B. Gormly is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at kgormly@tribweb.com or 412-320-7824.

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