Five Live has been investigating Gap Years - the programme can be accessed on the web ....

Sun 3 June

:

Mind The Gap The Five Live Report shines the spotlight on the booming gap year industry.  Reporter James Silver investigates claims that vulnerable teenagers are being exploited by some companies more concerned with profit than with the interests of their volunteers. We examine the case of a girl who was sold a place on a turtle breeding programme but when she turned up there were hardly any turtles, and an orphanage project in Sri Lanka where there were more volunteers than children. In 'Mind the Gap' we hear calls for a crackdown on the unregulated gap year volunteering business and reports about i to i , Quest Overseas, Teaching and Projects Abroad and www.GapYear.com which has useful message boards and blogs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/fivelive_aod.shtml?fivelive/flreport_mindthegap

You can go on line and listen to the report .............

Message Boards and blogs are becoming important sources of information to travellers - see for example
i to i
http://boards.gapyear.com/index.php?op=vt&c=&f=8&t=154858&o=0

and Real Gap
http://boards.gapyear.com/index.php?op=vt&c=15&f=8&t=205825





Edited by goodwinhj - 09 Jul 2007 at 07:07

Having looked at a number of voluntourism websites, I am amazed at the costs of these 'volunteer projects' - sometimes thousands of pounds. I think this is a very dangerous area - lots of anecdotes of one group building a wall one week, while the next group knocks it down. Can anyonw recommend a good company or tell me of one to avoid??

Just back from checking on volunteer placements and training a volunteer coordinator in Tanzania...

People have different ideas about volunteering, and part of the problem is the fact that there is no general understanding of volunteering, much less for how to be ethical in organising, coordinating, conducting etc...

Sounds simple though, someone out there wants to volunteer their time to 'save the world', someone has the contacts to make that happen and organise it, someone has the need to take in volunteers (sometimes also because they will donate a sum of money to the project), and someone is ready to coordinate the whole thing... sounds like one big win-win situation...

The problem is one of expectations and sometimes of greed... and that disbalances the whole need equation, which should work perfectly. The other factor of course is that there are several parameters involved (organisations, individuals etc..), and each work differently, and usually without the same information.

Volunteerism is full of holes, no doubts about that, even with responsible volunteering there are enough areas where you can point fingers and question, but the fact stands that volunteering is step in the right direction, it can help communities with desperately needed capacity building, can satiate the need to do something in individuals, and lets put this straight, can make money for all the people in between... .and frankly why not? (it is still fulfilling a need)...

How much money is made at different levels is a problem sometimes, and is usually weighed on the degree of success of the volunteering venture by the client and how much donation was received or how much work got done by the organisation.

These two are the most important of course, and the whole thing rests on how best you can match the volunteer and his/her skills with the need of the organisation... how much time has been spent analysing the need of the organisation, how pre-prepared the volunteer and organisation are, etc etc...

So concentration on the volunteer experience and the fulfillment of expectation of the organisation is key to being successful as well as being ethical. This takes time, and the reason many organisations fail is that they are not willing to take this time to understand and hence meet expectations, or are too greedy and want to make money too fast.

One often hears “scary stories” about irresponsible companies. This reality was told to us by a mother and son who volunteered on our orphanage programme in South Africa. Their experience occurred on a volunteer project in Zambia just prior to arriving on our programme.

“The one and only time they met the “organisers” was on arrival at the airport. They were then taken by road to a remote house where they were left for a week to fend for themselves …. and oh yes by the way to help the orphaned children in the house! The elder children looked after the babies and younger children in the house and there was no supervision. At night the children often went to sleep with empty stomachs and no adult (except the volunteers) in the house.”

One can only image the risks involved in the scene above. Our advice to prospective volunteers is to find out as much about the sending and receiving organisations on your volunteer experience. Find out what sort of pre-departure information and support you will receive; ask to see a “task description” of what you are expected to achieve; what is the ethos of the company; is a country as well as a project specific orientation provided; make sure that the project has the correct insurances for volunteering; what degree of on-the-ground support is there; what sort of feedback systems are in place.

These are just a few thing that volunteer should be doing before deciding to spend their hard earned money. And if you want to know how much of your spend goes to the community, just ASK. You are entitled to know!

Well, there is the thing about travelling independantly and going into projects and making donations or plain volunteer time.... and do not get me wrong, done right, this can be very effective and does leave most money direct into organisation hands... however....

This is where I get totally confused.... the 'done right' part... having been in countries where a lot of 'volunteer' action goes on, and seen a lot of different ways of how things are not done right, it confuses me as to what the right approach is...

Lack of skills and lack of resources makes well meaning organisations in these countries very weak, and they grab at anything they find... potential volunteers are a source of funding, capacity, or marketing resource, that they desperately need... however, every volunteer, however well meaning, does not have the nescessary skills nor interest (sometimes this is also true), the expectations are different... etc etc.. there are many different things here... also a short term volunteer (mind you, in development terms even a year volunteering can be short term, development does take much more time and understanding) cannot really understand the bigger picture, contextualise within country concepts, the relation between the NGO efforts and the economy, the environmental impacts of development.... (like building a school in Nepal is really required but but concrete structures in a earthquake fault line is not smart nor responsible, this is just one example and has happened and is happening all the time).... so how do you do it right?

A system for the management of volunteering is definitely important in each country.... e.g. are gap volunteers allowed in kindergartens in the UK (non-trained people handling little kids who require trained professionals and parents would sue the school if something were to happen to any kid), however the same 19 year old is perfectly accepted in a Ghanaian village school.... still untrained and left to do whatever she/he wants... is this fair or responsible...

Unmanaged volunteering can be bad, lets face it... hence a structured management of volunteering is required... the same 19 year old can be a good source of learning spoken english in the village school as well as teach some vocational skills like music, sports etc.., and maybe unless he/she is trained, should not be allowed to handle other courses...

Also I have seen dozens of cases when people come into villages who have been surviving as they are for thousands of years, and suddenly are confronted by a volunteer from another country, knowing exactly how they are going to develop them... toilets, schools, the works... who decides what development needs of a village are...

Organisations need to focus on this aspect... respecting the needs and developmental plans of the local oganisations and the community and matching volunteers for this need... making sure that the volunteer knows exactly where he/she fits in... and remembering to respect the system....

There is too much unmanaged volunteering going on and this needs to be checked...

one cannot give a piece of chocolate to a kid in a small village in Kenya and think that I have made one kid happy.... the kids will develop a habit he never had, the parents will be messed up because of the demands made by the kid, add the fact that his new found need will probably result in a dental problem in a country without dental insurance nor facilities...

that is a exaggerated case, but the implications of every action needs to be weighed deeply....

fully agree....

A code of conduct would be a good thing to bring out... I would love to see some of these issues addressed in a practice code for volunteering... not just the regular do's and dont's that come out...

seperate ones for organisations with schemes in the market
for local operators handling it
for local organisations working with volunteers
for volunteers themselves

now that would be a real good effort in the right direction...

Harold? any ideas?

Tourism Concern published their charter a few months ago.

Comhlamh, the Irish social rights organisation, provides good advice - http://www.volunteeringoptions.org/   

This was also brought up at the Travel Foundation AGM. Trouble being, as an enlightened gentleman from Kenya asked, who is going to implement it and what will the sanction be for going against it? Consumer choice is currently the only thing with any power in the corporate world so the answer must lie in providing people with other options that ultimately put pressure on those breaking the rules.

Whether anyone can compete with the size of their marketing departments is another question.

Thanks for all the useful references... will definitely have a look...

On the issue of dilution, that is bound to happen.... it is the same in the case of ecotourism, responsible tourism, pro poor tourism, you name it... the only thing that can be done is to educate the consumers, and though the process is slow, and with a loss of mess on the wayside, it does a slow steady evolution....

look at the rise in consumer interest for ecotourism or responsible tourism in the UK for example...

Also I believe that when corporates are shown that what is really takes is a lot of 'non investment heavy' ideology and values combined with a marginal increase in cost, and the long terms results for the company is huge, they might see the light...

problem is, by the time the technique goes through its evolution phase and proves itself in the market, a lot of damage will already have been done.

I have to own up to being a little confused by the article, if it correctly reflects the stance of VSO....I was under the impression that VSO runs gap opportunities for younger volunteers.Am I wrong?

Its only a marketing stunt by VSO... There are a lot of horror stories out there, but downright rejection of the industry, while launching their own version of volunteer travel opportunities, is grossly irresponsible...

I have met VSO people too who work in villages, pretty much like volunteers, as they do not get paid real high, and lead simple lives... but all that come through this programme are also not nescessarily effective... same with Peace Corps.. I have seen a lot of real misfits sent through these programmes.. I wonder what they have to say about this.... Not exactly volunteering, and they even go through a process of selection... and yet...

If one thinks that NGO's do not market thier wares, think again... in addition to being a 'good' NGO, they also have a better clout to get the message out there, as can be seen here. Of course they will market themselves!!!!