Lattitude Global Volunteering

( 6 Reviews )

Activities: Animal Volunteer Projects / Community Volunteer Projects / Career Break
Location: Multiple Destinations

Lattitude Global Volunteering is an international youth development charity.

Our mission is to educate and develop young people worldwide by providing inclusive opportunities for them to make a positive difference to the lives of others through a distinctive, challenging, structured and supported international volunteering experience in a culture and community different from their own.

Through global volunteering, we aim to give young people the opportunity to experience the world beyond their community and to truly engage with it. We seek to develop young people’s awareness and responsibilities towards themselves and others, and equip them with vital life skills.

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Best experience

I had set ideas on what my GAP year would be like and going to Vanuatu with lattitude was better than expected!

So good my six month placement turned into two years!

Support in Vanuatu was hard due to communication difficulties (bad reception and no internet) however everything else was 100% perfect and would recommend to everyone.

By: Bridget
Nationality: Australian
Age: 22

Loved it!

I went to Poland in 2015 for a 5 month teaching program. Lattitude was great in preparing us for the trip and helping us to meet other people before we left. The placement was lovely and our in country Lattitude representive was good. Would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in going on a gap year! Best advice is to pick somewhere you don't know much about and to do as much as you can while you are over there! My only gripe was I never heard anything from them after my trip but I did stay in Europe for longer which may explain this :)

By: Sam
Nationality: Australian
Age: 20

My unforgettable 3 months in Ghana

A few years ago, I graduated from university and wanted to travel as much as I could - before settling into work.

A friend then recommended I take a look into applying to volunteer through the ICS programme - and it was there that I discovered lattitude and its number of programmes based worldwide.

After a few interviews, I was lucky Enough to be accepted onto a 3 month government funded voluntary programme in a rural fishing village on the coast of Ghana, Africa.

Throughout my time in Ghana, my team and I helped to educate and promote health and sanitation awareness to students and locals across the village. We also set up awareness events, taught at the schools and improved infrastructure.

A local volunteer and I stayed with a local ‘guest family’ for the entire 3 months - I was really immersed into the local culture. The friendliness and welcoming nature of the locals, especially the children, will stick with me forever!

It’s been two years now but as I look back on my experience, I’m so glad I went for it and embraced the culture and made a little difference to as many people as I could.

Living without any of the basic amenities that we are so used to for three months really does help put everything into perspective - so for that reason alone, I would absolutely, highly recommend volunteering!

By: Rowen Norman
Nationality: British
Age: 26

Incredible Experience

When I turned 18, I was not sure where to go next. I was given an amazing opportunity to join the team of volunteers going to Vietnam who would be teaching English. In brief, the experience was life changing. I was able to meet so many incredible people, do so many amazing things and finding myself along the way. There was a lot of support through the journey and I would do it 100 times over! I often reflect on my experience and feel so blessed to have had such a great opportunity. Almost 4 years on and I still keep in contact with the friends I made along the way, including the students. I will treasure this experience for the rest of my life! I definitely reccomend doing it!

By: Brooke
Nationality: Australian
Age: 21

Amazing charity

Latitude supported me every step of the way. They provide you with all the tools needed for the best gap year experience

By: Sapna
Nationality: British
Age: 26

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My Experience Volunteering with Lattitude

When I first started university, I was full of naive dreams of how I would graduate straight from a Film and Television course into a job within the industry; my career would be started and adult life would be all worked out. By the time I graduated in July, I had accepted reality and would have welcomed pretty much any job that came my way. Numerous applications; numerous companies. No reply from most; that standard ‘unsuccessful’ email from others.

After a few months of this, I began to look into other avenues such as volunteering abroad. That is when I found ICS, the International Citizenship Service, which is a government funded development programme for 18-25 year olds that aims to tackle poverty both in the UK and around the world. It seemed an amazing opportunity, so I applied, and was very surprised when I received a call the next day inviting me to a selection day for Lattitude Global Volunteering, one of the charities involved. They offered 10 week placements to volunteer in Ghana and volunteer in Malawi, in which you live in the local community with a host family, and after attending the selection day.

I was offered a place on the Football For Hope project in Cape Coast, Ghana.
As a group, we worked with the staff at one of twenty centres that were built across the African continent by FIFA in 2010 to coincide with the World Cup being held in South Africa. We organised two events to promote the centre and its programmes, including a street walk which the local community, especially the children, really supported and joined in with.

We worked together to run and improve the homework club for the younger children, as well as re- launching a street league for 16-25 year olds who were either out of employment or education. Through this, we helped them to develop both ICT and life skills, with the main goal of this being to help improve valuable employability criteria, especially with ICT which is essential for employers in 2014. To add to these lessons, the participants were put into six football teams to play against each other in the league, including a team from Cape Coast Deaf School, which improved their teamwork and communication skills. Throughout the ten weeks, this programme became more successful with each passing week and the progress the participants made was visible to see as our time drew to a close at the end of March.

However, just because we left, it didn’t mean that the project was over. In fact, it is quite the opposite; this is just the beginning. The next group of volunteers are currently out there now, and more groups will follow them in July and September, working alongside their Ghanaian counterparts and centre staff to build on the success of the project.

So the question is, what are you waiting for?

By: Marc Seymour
Nationality: British
Age: 22