Volunteer work in Thailand, any suggestions from people who have done it?

i am an Australian thinking about going to thailand next year to do some volunteer work, need some basic info about how to get started and which visa would be best.
anyone who has had personal experience could help me out alot with my answers

if you want to go down south you could try the tusami volunteer centre at khao lak. khao lak is a beautiful place on the coast and a very safe place to stay its about 2 hrs by bus from phuket town. the tvc have a large variety of work you might like to try including teaching english in refugee camps. you can get cheap accomodation at the eule restaurant/cabins or ja restaurant next door. for an extended visa you have to go to a lot of trouble and apply in aust or you can just go there and do visa runs to the burmese border every month max stay 3 mths and then you must leave the country for 3 mths. the volunteers you will be working with are a happy lot and you should have a lot of fun i intend going back there at the end of the month on an extended visa if you require any more info you can contact me

well, not sure what you are specifically looking for - but you might want to contact some of the NGO's that work here. I am not connected with any organization but always find ways to help out a little here and there - I live upcountry and the English teachers know where to find me for a few days volunteer work. I am sure they would love help with this full time and you might even get some visa help from the shcool.. Out of bkk the english teachers cannot speak English - and the kids are alot of fun.

This is not as easy as you might think. Not sure how old you are, but I am an American living here on a retirement visa. (need to be 50 or older and have retirement income of 65,000 baht/mo). This means I can not work. When I wanted to do some volunteer work, I was warned that the government considers this working, eventhough you are not getting paid, so make sure you check out all details before venturing over here where they are not that appreciative of foreign volunteers. There are many stories of volunteers who went to Phuket right after the tsunami and were turned away.

Hey, I am going to Thailand in about 1 month to train and if I like it over there I may go back over. I was thinking about volunteer work too.. and was going to post this exact question..