Hungry for volunteer work...

I'm looking for volunteer opportunities that's LGBT-oriented. I heard somewhere that there's a retirement home for LGBTs somewhere in Pasay, but I have no details about it.

I've written about this before and I'm going to mention it again. After college, my first job was with Pahinungod - the volunteer service organization of the University of the Philippines. For three years, I've been heavily involved in volunteer activities.

Pahinungod became my life, my home. My real home became more of a boarding house for me. Haha! There were times when I would just go home to do my laundry and to get new clothes for another trip to some unknown place. I was lucky because my parents knew and understood what Pahinungod is. And they knew that even as a kid, I would always be away involved in some community activity.

When I started my corporate work, I lost time for any volunteer activities. I no longer could attend Pahinungod activities, even though they kept me in the loop of upcoming activities.

And while my work still involved volunteerism - corporate social responsibility - I would still like to get into non-work related volunteer activities, preferably LGBT-oriented.

Back when I was still doing work for ICON, I was quite informed about the various LGBT-oriented organizations here in Manila. One of the things I loved about my ICON work actually was getting to interview/talk to the people behind these organizations. I dunno. Somehow, they sparked the "tibak" in me, and really brought out the "UP activism" that's hidden in me somewhere. Haha!

I know that in the US, there are a lot of non-political NGOs that cater to the LGBT community. I did a short profile on Noel Alumit, who was part of the group APAIT in California, for ICON. I met his colleague Jimmy who visited the country early this year, and hearing him talk about his work and what the group does for the LGBT community somehow made me want to look for local volunteer opportunities that's LGBT-related.

Locally, I really dunno what organizations there are anymore since I lost contact with the groups. Once in awhile, I would stumble upon an email from good friend Angie about forums on LGBT-related topics. I have yet to attend one.

Uhm, anyway, I usually have weekends free so I thought I could spare a couple of hours during those days for volunteer work. And I’m up for almost any kind of volunteer work. It would really be great if someone could share some leads.