Gap Year Projects Abroad – overseas travel and volunteering rolled into one!

Gap Year Projects Abroad – overseas travel and volunteering rolled into one!

The last decade has seen a huge explosion in the number of college leavers deciding on taking a gap-year before joining university. And increasingly we are finding that the incorporation of some formal period of volunteering into these gap-years is becoming an expectation, not just of the gap-year students themselves, but of university admissions departments and employers alike.

This phenomenon has completely changed the face of overseas volunteering as far as Projects Abroad is concerned and, as the world’s leading international volunteering organisation, we feel we are well placed to make the assertion that the arrival of the “gap-year” has had a positive and long-lasting effect on the developing world. Long may it continue!

Projects Abroad – valuing Gap-Year volunteers

Since 1992 we have been witnessing the incredible impact that gap-year volunteers have been having in our various placements around the world; whether that be as part of a Teaching project in Ghana, a Care project in Nepal, a Conservation & Environment project in Peru, or one of our other many projects around the world.

Gap-year students may not be considered old or experienced enough to be given much responsibility in working environments over here but we consider them to have the right mixture of energy, enthusiasm and empathy that we need to give a classroom full of non English-speakers the confidence to say their first English words, or to befriend a timid young child in a rundown orphanage. This is why we continue to put our faith in gap-year students - by offering them a range of placements that you simply will not find with any other volunteering organisation.

Gap-Year Projects and Destinations, including "2 Week Specials"

If you are a gap-year student looking to volunteer abroad, then you can choose from a huge range of projects, in 24 destinations around the globe. You can volunteer on our projects for as little as two weeks and you get to choose your own start dates - perfect for fitting into a busy gap-year! To get started you can click on either the Projects or the Destinations link at the top of the page.

If you are currently in college or school, and considering taking a gap-year, but are not yet sure whether it is going to be the right thing for you, then we run 2 Week Special projects. These are effectively “tasters”; you get to spend two weeks with a group of other volunteers, aged 16-19, finding out exactly what volunteering is all about, and being taken out on evening and weekend excursions by our local staff. To find out more then click on our Projects link at the top of the screen and then select “2 Week Specials” from the left-hand menu bar.