The Independent: Test the waters
Added to website: 26 June 2007
Why voluntary work could be the perfect start to a career…
Volunteering at home or abroad could give you the break - and experience - you need!
By Laura Smith
Planning a gap year after university should be a pleasure - all that time to fill, with only the limits of your imagination to hold you back. Only problem is, the sheer wealth of options can make the whole thing seem more complicated than revising for your final-year exams. If you’d like to do something useful, but don’t know where to start, here are a few pointers to help you choose the placement that’s right for you.
There are hundreds of companies tapping into the lucrative market in gap year volunteering abroad and, though it can be expensive, there may be advantages in choosing to go with a recognised firm. They’ll usually organise everything for you and offer on-the-ground support when you get there - important when you’re alone in a foreign country. And it will definitely reassure your parents.
Coral Cay Conservation (www.coralcay.org) meanwhile, offers expeditions to tropical forests and coral reefs around the world. “We get invited in by local governments to conduct environmental surveys,” explains spokeswoman Laura Timms. ” We then ask for volunteers to help us with that work.” At the moment, Coral Cay is taking volunteers to projects in the Philippines (see case study, below), Tobago and Papua New Guinea.
“The Tobago project involves surveying a coral reef,” says Timms. “Volunteers spend a week learning to dive, two weeks learning the science side of things, such as what species live there, and the remaining time collecting data. You will mix with the local community and be diving in areas of coral reef where no-one else is allowed, which makes it very special.” Volunteers stay for between six weeks and three months and prices start from £1,500 for four weeks including dive training, equipment, full board and accommodation, but no flights.
‘I did a lot of work with the locals, teaching kids how to snorkel and how to survey the reefs’
Bethan O’Leary, 22, is about to graduate from Southampton with a degree in geography. Last summer she spent two months working on a marine project in the Philippines with Coral Cay Conservation.
“I chose the project because I wanted to do something that was science based and that might actually make a difference. I also used it to do my dissertation on the biological and social impact of Marine Protected Areas.
I went on my own but when I got there there were about 20 other volunteers ranging in age from 17 to their late twenties. We spent time learning to how to dive and about the marine life and after that we would carry out surveys twice a day, with time at the weekends. We also did lots of day trips to see other parts of the country. One of them was to see Saint Bernard, the site of a major landslide, where we saw the Red Cross villages and how people are coping. I’m now helping to fundraise so they can build a playground for the children.
The trip gave me a lot of field experience and taught me a lot in terms of science. I did a lot of work with the locals, teaching kids how to snorkel and how to survey the reefs, and we also helped paint murals at municipal buildings. I took a gap year after school and just wanted to have some time off. But my Coral Cay placement had a completely different purpose. I wanted to learn and make more of a difference.”
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