WORK WITH ANIMALS ON YOUR CAREER BREAK
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Your thoughts and feedback would be great - newsite@gapyear.com
Your thoughts and feedback would be great - newsite@gapyear.com
 Name: Helen Barr Age: 41 Occupation: Lecturer and careergapper 'Aged 41 with a secure job as a lecturer in English at the University of Oxford, why shake everything up and apply for volunteer work in two such diverse places as Peru and Thailand? Answer: ever since I was a university student I had wanted to volunteer overseas, but the programmes then available were costly both in terms of time and finance. Domestic responsibilities acquired from my mid-twenties seemed permanently to scupper such hopes. The desire seemed doomed. But the frustration grew: poverty and devastation flashed on TV screens and front page newspaper reportage which seemed to prompt only two available responses: a) feel profoundly moved but do nothing, or b) feel profoundly moved and stick a cheque in the post. Yet what I saw seemed to demand venturing beyond the glassiness of a TV screen and the mottled safe print of a photo image and going there myself. Easier felt than done. There were attitudes at work and at home to be overcome, and when I trawled through the volunteering possibilities either the time commitment was too binding or I seemed completely unqualified. In truth, the latter was more off-putting than the first. Enter Cross-Cultural Solutions. And it was the solution. I was immediately attracted by their all-inclusive age policy, the possibility of commitment for variable periods of time, and their willingness to accommodate a less proscriptive skill basis. I was also drawn to their underlying principles: in fostering programmes which encouraged awareness of cross cultural understanding, both at home and abroad, much could be done to address underlying cultural attitudes which are so crucial in spawning, and sustaining, the kinds of ignorance and exploitation which result in global inequalities. As a result of Cross-Cultural Solutions’ skill in matching volunteer skills, interests and hopes to programmes, my volunteer time in Thailand and in Peru exceeded expectations. I worked in an after-school centre for children and teens in Lima and a centre for street and runaway children in Bangkok.  I spent no longer than six weeks in each place, which - of course - feels not enough, but I did feel that the time I spent with street children in Bangkok and with children in the poorest district of Lima mattered in their day-to-day experiences. While in terms of large-scale politics or economics, or material contributions such as establishing a well for water or setting up an engineering plant, I can claim nothing, in terms of being alongside such disadvantage, learning about its causes and helping to make the daily experiences of those children creative, fun, and most of all, safe, I feel confident that my presence did matter. Days matter. It is now nearly a year since my first programme in Thailand. Not a day goes by when I do not think of the people I worked with: staff at Cross-Cultural Solutions, staff and children at the placements. But with Cross-Cultural Solutions, the work does not stop once you come home; volunteering does not stop once the TV screen comes into view again - by stepping into the space behind, you’ve crossed that all-important barrier. While I used to feel that there was no dropping off the treadmill of professional life, I have learnt differently. It is always hard to divert from the known; but Cross-Cultural Solutions creates a space in which you can. The programmes allow for a return, and a return I fully intend to make. Cross-Cultural Solutions is not for a period but for life, and for a life which makes possible a full understanding of the here and the there, and the ways in which that distinction is broken down.'  Click here >> for more details about placements in Thailand with Cross-Cultural Solutions Click here >> for more placements with Cross-Cultural Solutions all over the world Click here >> to email Cross-Cultural Solutions |
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