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The Gap Year Entrepreneur Dr. Peter Slowe is the world’s leading 'gap year' entrepreneur. The author of ‘Geography and Political Power’ and ‘Battlefield Berlin: Siege, Surrender and Occupation’ with a DPhil from Oxford, is a real life Indiana Jones...

Dr. Slowe spends 3 months of the year uncovering archaeological artefacts like the new Inca Trail in Huyro near Machu Picchu and fossils of dinosaur eggs in Mongolia. His wife Karen and son, Alistair, 19, hardly see him. Being trapped by snow at the foot of Mount Everest or unearthing medieval relics in Transylvania, or counting elephants in the African bush – it’s in his blood.

He lives the Projects Abroad motto of "Help, Learn, Explore".

Where did it all begin for Dr. Slowe and Projects Abroad? Back in 1992, a group of Dr. Slowe’s geography students at Chichester University approached him wanting to go on a field trip to Romania. He got an EU grant and created a student exchange project with the Romanian Transylvania University. His own ‘gap’ experience at the age of 17 in Kashmir India, gave him some clues.

Today, Projects Abroad (formerly Teaching & Projects Abroad) is the world's leading gap year organisation with a turnover of £10m in a UK industry worth £100m annually. It leads a UK market of over 70 players, many of them members of the Year Out Group, of which Projects Abroad was a founding member. At HQ in Goring-on-Sea they have 20 staff. 263 permanent staff members are in the field. Recruitment offices are based in Australia, Denmark, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and the USA. The organisation is particularly innovative, with Web-design in Mexico, administration in India and Sri Lanka, IT in Romania and Financial Management from, yes, believe it or not, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Graduates, Gappers and Career-breakers alike pay from £1,295 for 2 weeks up to £2,295 for 3 months. Each additional month thereafter starts at £495 and doesn’t include the flights or visas which they can also organise. Projects Abroad offers 675 projects in 23 developing countries from Bolivia to India, from Ghana to Mongolia.

This month Projects Abroad celebrated its 20,000th volunteer.

Whilst the credit crunch bites, Projects Abroad have seen a 30% increase in numbers this summer. "1,800 people have already travelled with us over July/August. We keep growing and growing,” says Dr. Slowe. The volunteers come from a range of socio demographics. About 45% of the volunteers are gap year students around the age of 18. The remainder include new or recent graduates at 35%, other under-30’s at 10% and older career-breakers and retirees at 10%. “We had a woman of 77 do a project in an orphanage in Cambodia recently," says Dr. Slowe. "We celebrate diversity. Anyone can join Projects Abroad.” The volunteers come from an even spread of British 35%, American 25%, and Canadian, German, Dutch, French, Italians, Danish, Australians and others – including the first few Japanese, Israelis and Russians - all at 5%.

What is Projects Abroad’s secret to success?

“Innovation, innovation, innovation,” is the key to Projects Abroad’s success, says Dr. Slowe.

To that end Dr. Slowe is always uncovering new projects. When our Olympic athletes hit the track at the Beijing Olympics on 8th August, teams of young British journalists will be watching, interviewing , recording and feeding news back to Shanghai’s English-speaking media. Another ground-breaking area spearheaded by Projects Abroad is Climate Change. Projects Abroad and Jade Jagger launched the world’s first eco-disco on the 10th July in King’s Cross, London, Club4Climate. Projects Abroad are providing volunteers for the creation of sustainable dance clubs in Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro and New York and in a number of developing countries. “No other gap year organisation is allowing people to combine serious ground-breaking environmental work in the African bush, the Amazon rainforest and the Pacific Coast of Mexico with serious eco-friendly partying ,” says Dr. Slowe. The burgeoning popularity of programmes like BBC’s The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den, has meant there is a huge interest in Entrepreneurship. Projects Abroad is there first as well. In Pakistan, Dragon James Caan assisted Projects Abroad to launch an enterprise initiative for budding entrepreneurs from all over the UK and from Pakistan – and soon for young talents from all over the world linking up with Global Entrepreneurship Week, 17-23 November 2008 .

It’s all about making volunteering relevant, and exciting for the 'next generation' of volunteers.

PROJECTS

So, what are the different project areas that Projects Abroad provide?

Entrepreneurship:

Projects Abroad are the first and only gap year organisation to offer comprehensive Entrepreneurship programmes in countries. Real people devise real ideas and see them happen. Dragon James Caan chose Pakistan to launch his enterprise initiative in Lahore, Pakistan, where he runs schools and businesses. In India, Projects Abroad have established partnerships with the cornerstones of Industry. Gulam Noon, the millionaire food manufacturer has been helping in India. Before Gordon Brown visited India last year, Lord Malloch Brown asked Dr. Slowe to write a report on the potential partnerships between young British and Indian entrepreneurs “India is a phenomenon. The Investment Angels programme backed by Peter Jones is an inspiration for young people. We want to offer young people an immediate way to engage with the culture through enterprise. In India, Enterprise volunteers have been building markets for Indian organic herbs for export. In Senegal, they have been looking at varying developments in Adventure Tourism. To underline Projects Abroad’s credentials as leaders in their field of Global Entrepreneurship, they have been asked by the Make Your Mark Organisation to administer the Ernst & Young sponsored Global Entrepreneurship Week in November. This will involve Projects Abroad linking young entrepreneurs and enterprising ideas in the 29 developed and developing countries where they work.

Legal:

A big area is human rights law. Projects Abroad set up this year the Human Rights and Advocacy Centre in Accra, Ghana, to stop human rights abuses in Africa. It is headed by Nana Oye Lithur, one of the best human rights lawyers on the planet and African head of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. From women’s rights in Ghana to children’s rights in the townships of Cape Town to basic human rights in Zimbabwe, volunteers – gappers who want to be lawyers, law students, solicitors and barristers – can make a huge difference. Joss Stone’s sister Lucie Stoker, is a legal student at Cardiff University. She has added human rights work in Ghana to her credentials by working in the Human Rights and Advocacy Centre in Accra and in the field, promoting women’s rights in the remote Volta provinces of Ghana. Work in the legal field is available in China, Mongolia, South Africa, Senegal and Togo. You could be attending court sessions, and you may be asked to monitor and report on proceedings in newspapers or on the radio or television. Law-related activies such as undertaking research, report-writing, visiting rural clients, giving presentations in schools or other community groups or making use of local media are important in all the countries where Projects Abroad has law projects. As well as human rights, volunteering and internships can involve working in banking law, mergers, acquisitions, corporate intellectual property, taxation and insolvency. The internships are for law graduates, law professionals wishing to take a career break, law students (during holidays) and people who have completed a law conversion course and – of course - pre-university students and gappers thinking of joining the legal profession.

Journalism:

Projects Abroad lead the world in providing experience in print, radio and television journalism for young people interested in the field of journalism. In China, 60 volunteers work in business, sports and entertainment magazines and at the Shanghai Daily, with a readership over one million. Entertainment magazines including That's Shanghai and Talk, both with circulations over 250,000 and Culture magazines like Metrozine. “We don’t leave our volunteers and journalism interns waiting at the starting gate, we put them straight into the middle of the action.” If they’re not reporting the Olympics from from Beijing or on visits by film-stars to Shanghai, they’re presenting the English-speaking TV5 and Mongolia National TV broadcast to 3 million viewers. Edit, produce, present. Do 30 minute English language news. Young people don’t just have fun, they learn plenty, going on to work for CNN, The Economist and Time Magazine. In India, Romania and Bolivia, younger volunteers put whole English-language magazines together – from planning to printing – an unbeatable CV entry for a tough profession.

Care Work:

Projects Abroad volunteers work at orphanages all around the world. In Cambodia, Nepal and Cape Town there is life-changing orphanage work. In Bolivia, Projects Abroad took over a run-down government orphanage for mentally handicapped kids. Now they run it as a model and happy place with good food, fresh paint, lovely play-areas, beautiful gardens. In India, they are establishing a village clinic in Rayagiri, a village where there are currently no medical facilities, and volunteers also work in a specialised leprosy hospital, a TB clinic and a traditional Ayurvedic clinic; they also have medical Outreach programmes to help identify children’s problems with hearing and vision, which may otherwise have been undetected, as well as treating minor ailments. In Africa, care and law volunteers come together to help within the fields of women’s and children’s rights, justice for vulnerable groups, forced evictions, human rights monitoring and police accountability, ways to handle police brutality, forced marriages and child-trafficking.

English Teaching:

Of course teaching is still a mainstay. People all around the world need help with conversational English . Projects Abroad was founded on teaching English. This still makes up over 20% of their volunteers English teaching programmes are particularly important in South India, Moldova, Mongolia, Bolivia and Cambodia. In Peru, Projects Abroad worked with the government in Lima to establish an English-language curriculum for children living in the Sacred Valley of the Incas near Cusco; for them whom English is their third language but essential for jobs in tourism. The volunteers teach the teachers and the pupils in a highly organised language development programme. You don't have to be a teacher to volunteer on our English teaching projects abroad. There is no need to have a TEFL or TESOL qualification to gain work experience in any of our overseas destinations. You don't even need to speak the local language where you are going. The programme is open to all volunteers whether you are on a gap year, at university or wanting a career break.

All we require is a good standard of spoken English. By providing Conversational English teaching you can greatly enhance the learning experience and the future prospects of thousands of children and adults in the developing world.

Sports Coaching:

Projects Abroad also offers opportunities to teach Sports, which crosses all language barriers. There’s golf in Argentina and tennis and cricket in India, but it is football where Projects Abroad is really making a special contribution. Projects Abroad’s Football Academy is at Cantonments in Accra, Ghana. It is supported by Emmanuel Eboué the Arsenal Striker, and it runs three junior and one senior team with 83 members between 10 and 22. It is already getting interest from Europe and has agreed transfers to Moldova and Cyprus. The pilot project captured the interest of Manchester United players and a visit to Accra by big names is on the cards. Projects Abroad work alongside George Avoola Ladipo, the coach of the Ghana Junior National Rugby team, to help develop the sport in the whole Cape Coast Region. George is a qualified coach and is very happy to pass on some of his coaching skills and experience to willing volunteers who are prepared to help him in his quest to bring Rugby to the sports-mad West African country. Training sessions at the rugby placements can sometimes have as many as 50 children.

Moslem and Interfaith Relations:

Projects Abroad is starting to play a part in improving Interfaith Relations. In the case of Gillian Gibbons, Dr. Slowe was the main commentator on BBC and Sky News. He explained how an organisation like Projects Abroad would certainly never put its volunteers at risk, ill-briefed and unsupported as Gillian Gibbons had been. Baronness Warsi has been in talks with Projects Abroad about devising a project in the Sudan at the Boy's Hope Center and the Displaced Persons School in Khartoum. More than just rich international schools like Unity where Gillian Gibbons worked. If we consider it safe to send vol;unteers, we will create a link with Sudanese at all levels of society and enable volunteers to make a difference to the lives of the youngsters involved. As James Caan says of the Projects Abroad’s Pakistan programme, “It is our objective to generate an understanding of Moslem countries by British youngsters, including British Moslem youngsters”. Peter Slowe adds, “We also have a Moroccan Arab who runs our office in Rabat who is keen to help us establish inter-faith projects in the Bethlehem, Jericho and Jerusalem.

Conservation / Ecology:

Projects Abroad are world leaders on Conservation/Environment projects. They have wonderful village greening project in South India. A Tropical Forest Conservation in Costa Rica, Sea turtle and coastal ecology projects in Mexico, wildlife conservation in South Africa, diving and marine projects in Thailand. There is an amazing wildlife reserve in the African bushveld on the border between Botswana and South Africa. They are true 'Guardians of Nature'.. In Peru, we run our own nature reserve at Taricaya, down-river from the frontier town of Puerto Maldonado in the far south. It is a respected biological research centre where volunteers carry out scientific studies. It is also an animal release centre, where they release birds, monkeys, snakes, tapirs, ocelots and eventually even jaguars into the rainforest. There is also a project at Taricaya, working with the local indigenous community, helping to find ways to farm and prosper without damaging the rainforest, for example growing coffee and breeding edible snails. This whole project has a special website, www.volunteer-conservation-peru.org. In Mexico, volunteers live on the beach and rescue turtle eggs.

Archaeology:

Archaeology projects with Projects Abroad, like the Inca archaeology project have made - and continue to make – remarkable discoveries, just a few miles from Machu Picchu. Even in Europe – as Dr. Slowe explains: “We have taken part in important digs in Southern Romania at a Neolithic site near the Danube Delta. This month we went to a medieval digging near Bucharest, in a small village called Gaiseni, the site of a monastery called Strambu built in medieval times by "boieri", harsh feudal landlords”.

Bespoke / Tailor-Made Projects:

Projects Abroad will build great volunteering and internship projects around the requirements of individuals or groups. For example, a group of medical students from Hong Kong spent a month getting unrivalled medical experience in Ghana. Individuals on the other hand often want to do special research for their degree alongside volunteering and Projects Abroad can always link them with local universities. Then there are the really-specials! “Some kids in Thailand wanted experience working on a film ... and we linked them up with David Winters who’s making a film with Wesley Snipes in Thailand in September called Chasing the Dragon. This was arranged through Petra Nemcova, who has a foundation to help children in Thailand which she set up after her terrible experiences in the 2004 tsunami.”

MOTIVATIONS:

What are the primary motivators for a volunteer to come to Projects Abroad? Firstly, Gap year experiences, today, give young people an extra edge over competitors in the workplace. They’re showing, not just ‘willing’ but ‘able. “If you’re the CEO of Goldman Sachs, BP or Clifford Chance, and you’re wading through a pile of CV’s with candidates all of similar grades, you’re going to be interested seeing the exciting one who’s done something different.” Real-time practical experience in the field is always going to beat the applicant who’s had a summer job at Dixons , every time. Apart from being incredible for your CV, Projects Abroad fulfils the need to give something back. “It’s part of the human condition to want to help those who are so much worse off than ourselves. We provide a way to do this.”

Dr. Peter Slowe adds a new dimension:

“The real chance to do a gap year only comes once in your life. It comes when you have finished school and before you begin higher education.”

“There is a general lack of pressure at this one point in your life. It never happens again.”

“Parents don’t ask “Why don’t you go and earn some money and get on a career-ladder”? At least not that much. Peer groups aren’t yet in a position to make you envious by saying they’re making all kinds of advances in life and you’re just lagging behind.”

“If you wait to take some time out until you’ve got a degree, you might be making a big mistake. That is a good time to take a few months off. But the problem is that the inevitable debts – and all the disapproval and worry that goes with them – mean that you won’t be able to take a long break without feeling guilty. You might even say to yourself “I’ll get a job for few months and earn enough money to go abroad…”. It may work but there are obvious pitfalls. In particular, how will you feel when your friends are earning £40,000 a year and you’re a barman in Adelaide? You might feel smug, but then again you might just start to worry.”

“What about career-breaks? Even though it’s easier than it used to be to take time off in the middle of a career, there will always be a missed mortgage payment, a missed promotion, your partner, your kids … and so (drearily) on.”

“What about retirement? Forget it. There won’t be enough pensions to go round in your generation. And when you finally do retire at 82, it’s not the ideal time to go climbing in the Himalayas.”

So quit dreaming and start planning. You have a year that is yours and yours alone. Parents, teachers, bank managers – none of them has the right to take it away from you. The opportunity won’t come round again. Miss it – and that is the end of that.”

COMPETITIVE MARKETPLACE:

The Gap year business has come of age and is now part of the mainstream travel business. Projects Abroad as market leader constantly has the big travel boys snapping at their heels. After being turned down by Projects Abroad, travel giant, Tui, recently purchased rival companies i-to-i and Realgap for £10m each. Dr. Slowe is having too much fun to sell his business. Still there are plenty of cowboys. Because the barriers are low to entry. “I advise anyone to watch out for people offering projects on the cheap. It’s too easy for them to just build a website We own every project, and train and employ every staff member. Accountability is critical and fundamental. Watch out for sharks. But that is the same in every business.” Projects Abroad has proved itself twenty thousand times over. “We are in it for the long run.”

COMMERCIAL VS. STATE FUNDED:

Commercial doesn’t mean greedy or costly. It simply means more efficient.

Dr. Slowe is an arch-critic of inefficient, wasteful government-backed volunteering like Volunteer Services Overseas (VSO). “For every 1 person VSO send into the field, for the same money Projects Abroad can send 25 people.” “They use £42 million, most of it from the taxpayer, to provide poor services to developing countries and volunteers alike.” Dr. Slowe is a vocal critic of the Ministry for International Development for their wastage - interestingly vocal considering he was the former Chairman of the Labour Finance & Industry Group when Tony Blair came to power. “I can’t stand waste. Nor can I abide the disillusion of so many people – those who volunteer to help and those who need help – caused by the sheer inefficiency of VSO.”

ENTREPRENEURIAL PROJECTS:

A fundamental thrust of Projects Abroad is that volunteering should mean something. The work has to be doable and relevant – orphanages which need volunteers, schools which need teachers, real conservation projects which improve the environment, relevant and serious business, sports and journalism placement, groundbreaking archaeology, real work for medical and veterinary interns and volunteers. This is what it’s about.

It’s a business. But it’s also changing people’s lives. Projects Abroad, as well as sending volunteers to join the media in countries as diverse as Mexico, Moldova and Mongolia, offers a different angle from the others, in that it has three placements - in Bolivia, Romania and India - on magazines the organisation has set up itself, to guarantee that volunteers will receive proper attention, rather than returning home with an advanced qualification in tea-making. "The placement gives volunteers the chance to learn about journalism, to see if they like it or not," says Erin Chalfant, managing editor of south India's Sivakasi Times, one of the magazines set up by Teaching and Projects Abroad. "They have the opportunity to learn more about the community - going out on interviews really gets them beneath the surface of the town."

SAFETY:

Projects Abroad are characterised by their high levels of safety. They ensure countries are politically stable and safe, and they handle all insurance and visa details. Every country has a Country Director, at least one permanent Projects Abroad office and paid members of staff. They are trained in the UK and in-country to follow best-practice procedures including monitoring, security and emergency procedures. The permanent overseas staff also organise the details of placements and accommodation according to strict criteria and high standards. They are available during the day and 24 hours by the phone.

CONCLUSION:

It takes young people to a world of new experience. It responds to anyone who has a sense of adventure. Try living and working with a Nomadic family on a Mongolian steppe, riding camels.

Like the film Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, Dr. Slowe now has his son Alistair caught up in the adventure, teaching kids football in Ghana, helping change their lives ....