With UK university fees on a high market and all-time jobs around the world in times of great instability, why not look at putting stability back into your life with gap years volunteering abroad?
Volunteering is becoming much more popular with each passing year.
Many more people are now leaving schools and colleges and opting for gap years abroad due to a lack of opportunities in the current job market and costs and universities on the rise. Many people are left without alternatives and forced to look abroad for opportunities to advance in life. A gap year doesn’t mean you take a trip to Australia and sit on the beach for an entire year, unless of course you want to waste this opportunity. It means ‘broadening your mind’ and experiencing something completely new!
Africa appears to be all the rage right now with volunteer projects ranging from working with HIV / AIDS victims in outreach centers across the continent to working with research scientists in some of Africa’s most famous game parks. There are volunteering opportunities for everyone as there are very few requirements that you have to meet to be eligible to take part in volunteer projects abroad. By giving yourself the opportunity to work abroad in your gap year, you are opening up many different avenues in your life, paths that were not open to you before. Not only does this give you a clearer picture of what you may want to do with your life in the future it also helps you move up the work ladder when you return home.
Employers are always looking for CVs with a difference and you’re bound to tend to show that after your gap year. By an employer seeing you have taken the time out of your life at home to work abroad in your gap year as a volunteer they can see you are not money motivated but you are looking for ways to further education, and this is something they are real taking a liking too. Your valuable volunteer project in your gap year should definitely help you get your CV to the top of the pile and hopefully the job offer you’ve been waiting for.
Gap years not only all work and no play however.
You’re in Africa, so you might as well make the most of it and see as much as you can. There are many magical sites to see and plenty of adventurous activities to take part in such as the opportunity to hike Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Opportunities like this don’t present them to you every day so snap it up while you can and see what the world has to offer you.
