Your gap year - who benefits?

As soon as Prince William spent time helping school children in Chile, and his brother took a year out working with orphans in Lesotho, the profile of volunteering abroad has rocketed. As a result, a booming industry has formed around the volunteer gap year, with an array of travel companies offering programmes of every sort for students wishing to do their bit, as well as gain knowledge of different cultures.

It’s a hugely tempting option, but well-meaning students face a problem. Recent reports have suggested that the huge amount of money spent by students on their year out (an average of £4800) is often benefiting the travel companies more than the communities the volunteers are supporting. Since most students don’t suffer sleepless nights worrying about the state of the travel industry, this is not what gap year students had in mind. So how can you avoid filling their pockets further?

"There are some big players in the field who are exploiting the situation and offering a two week 'save the World' trip. It cannot be done."

First of all, there are some legitimate companies offering worthy schemes for gap year students to volunteer with. But others will exploit both you and the communities. It’s an indication of the seriousness of the problem that international development agency, VSO, has stepped in to warn people that volunteering schemes can do more harm than good. The VSO has said that while it ‘encourages volunteering for people of all ages, badly planned and supported ‘voluntourism’ schemes may be having a negative impact on young people and they communities they work with’.

Director of VSO UK, Judith Brodie, commented:
“While there are many good gap year providers we are increasingly concerned about the number of badly planned and supported schemes that are spurious - ultimately benefiting no one apart from the travel companies that organise them.”

The founder of gap year company Changing Worlds, David Gills, agrees: "There is some excellent work going on with some organisations. However there are some big players in the field who are exploiting the situation and offering a two week 'save the World' trip. It cannot be done. Equally some of the costs involved are huge."

Hannah Saunders took up a placement with a commercial organisation, teaching English in India. She paid over £1000 for the experience, but found that the lack of support she received made the year more difficult than she anticipated:

“I didn’t have any training or preparation from the organisation before I went, and they didn’t expect me to have any qualifications. I had a really tough time and suffered from culture shock, as India is so different from anywhere else, which I wasn’t ready for.

“I turned up at the learning centre and the teachers didn’t even know I was coming. It was very hard to find out what I was supposed to be doing. It wasn’t value for money, as there was very little support from the organisation before or during my time there.”

On the other end of the scale, other companies may provide more support than this, but could still be equally problematic. The VSO warned last year that gap year students ‘risked becoming the new colonialists’. Putting the students at this risk are the travel companies which cater to the needs of the volunteers rather than communities they are supposedly supporting.

So how to tread the middle ground between companies that don’t support you, and companies that focus on you at the expense of the community? The answer’s simple: choose your gap year travel provider with care. VSO advises that students find a development focused organisation. Says David Gills:

“Look at www.yearoutgroup.com. Select three or four organisations, send them all ten or so identical questions and register their response. Ask to be put in contact with returned volunteers. Ask for a breakdown of where the money goes."