There are currently 170,000 people homeless in London. Over the last ten years, a succession of drastic cuts means rough sleeping in the UK has increased 165% since 2010. By the…
Volunteering
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Today I’m going fishing – for litter and plastic. It’s a sunny Saturday morning in East London, and I’m sitting on a stationary canal-boat-turned-cafe, sipping coffee (in a reusable cup!), and…
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Croatia France Middle East Personal Syria Volunteering
From Syria to Calais: Nine Years of Changing Perspectives
In the summer of 2007 I travelled to Syria. Our group were on a trip around the Middle East when we crossed over the Jordanian border to arrive in the ancient walled city of…
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advice Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Peru South America Volunteering
So You Want to Volunteer in South America?
Last updated March 2019 “I’m going to volunteer in South America!” This gleeful announcement was made to my dad in the summer of 2013, just three days after I’d flown back home…
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I was nervous. Standing awkwardly on a patch of sloping mud below a grassy sand dune, I stared down at my hefty walking boots half covered by waterproof trousers. Opposite me…
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There is French dirt from the Calais camps coating my clothes. Dust from the warehouse blurring the lenses of my glasses. The cracks in my hands are sore and dried out, and…
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Bolivia Challenges South America Volunteering
Volunteering at the Biblioworks Library in Morado K’asa, Bolivia
I didn’t even know we’d arrived in Morado K’asa until Roxana pulled at my arm. Clambering past a mother and her baby, we jumped down from the little micro bus and…
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Bolivia South America Volunteering
What It’s Like to Volunteer at an Artificial Limb Clinic in Bolivia
“Ah, shit! I’ve broken my leg…” Two Bolivian ladies flutter anxiously around me as I attempt to get up from the pavement, my spectacular stumble-and-fall still fresh in my memory. My…
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Brazil Personal South America Volunteering
Community, Compromise and Hard Work: Back to Basics in the Brazilian Jungle
The late afternoon sun was strong as I clambered across the gleaming white peaks of the kitchen hut roof, paintbrush in hand. It already looked like I was standing on top…
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“This is a forgotten place,” Marcos says, as he unlocks the chain wrapped tight around a set of big blue doors. “But you’re with me. You’re probably safer up here than…