Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
And here's what Projects Abroad had to say: “Our most popular destinations include
Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa, Nepal and Peru. The most popular project types are care
placements and medicine and healthcare placements. A lot of our volunteers are looking to
either help local people in disadvantaged communities or to gain practical experience be-
fore starting a university degree in an area like nursing or dentistry for example.
“Our conservation projects are also very popular and will take you to some incredible
places from working in the canopy of the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest to diving and tag-
ging sharks in the tropical waters of Fiji.”
One exciting new development - and one that comes highly recommended by the NUS -
is the government-funded International Citizen Service (ICS) programme.
It seeks to put young people at the forefront of the fight against global poverty and over
the next three years 7,000 young people from the UK will work in partnership with young
people in developing countries, on projects to fight poverty where help is needed the most.
The scheme follows a hugely successful pilot year and aims to offer a transformative ex-
perience for 18-25 year olds. The programme is designed to deliver three outcomes: to
have a real and lasting development impact on sustainable development projects; to help
the volunteers both from the UK and from developing countries learn key life skills such
as teamwork, leadership, communication and project planning: and to instil in these volun-
teers a life-long commitment to development and to becoming active citizens, engaged in
their communities back in the UK.
Only you can decide what's most important to you, it depends on whether you're more into
plants, animals and the environment, in which case you'd be happier on a conservation pro-
ject. If you're a people person you might do something that helps disadvantaged people,
whether they're children, adults, and disabled or able-bodied.
Whichever you feel is right for you there's a huge range of companies and types of volun-
tary placements to choose from.
Even if you are straight from school or university and haven't yet had much experience of
work-related skills you shouldn't underestimate the skills and qualities you may have, and
take for granted, that can be far less accessible to disadvantaged people in places where
such things as access to education or to communications are not universally available.
