Isaac's Gap Year Volunteering in Africa

I hope this finds you well. I am excited to write to you today, and share my plans for the coming year and to ask for your support.

As you may know, I have just finished my A-level exams and I am in the process of planning my gap year to Africa which will have three main volunteering aspects.

This last year has perhaps been the most challenging of my life; notwithstanding the pressures of A-Levels, I have been working through some personal struggles within myself, and in particular, dealing with the death of a school friend. So, this coming year for me is one where I go back to the continent on which I was born, to do something very different, and to meet and experience many different ways of life, which I hope, with the African sunshine, will be deeply restorative.

Part 1: Dietuin Farm. October - December 2023.

I will be volunteering at this farm in the Great Karoo desert and will be hosted by some family friends. This is more of a sheep ranch covering 11,000 hectares in the semi-arid desert of the Great Karoo. Rocky outcrops, endless skies, and learning sheep farming! This is the same farm that my brother volunteered at two years ago and I hope for a similar amazing experience. I will work at the farm alongside the local workers, learning their way of life.

Part 2: Shiloh Learning Centre, Zambia. January - March 2024.

The Shiloh Learning Centre is a small rural school set up to support farm workers in a part of Zambia where there is little to no education in the immediate area. Families normally have to send their children away to boarding schools or drive hours each day. It has 40 students and is on a site that has recently been built, yet there is still much work to be done. The school teaches from Nursery to Year 7, and I will be helping across the board, but mainly in reading, writing, numeracy and sports. The school playing fields are also shared with an active airstrip, and apparently, ahead of an aeroplane landing the school is phoned, and asked to vacate the runway!

I hope to be able to bring my experience and knowledge of an amazing education here in the UK to help teach these children. I will be staying with long-term family friends who have recently moved back to Africa from the UK.

Part 3: St. Andrews Preparatory School, Turi, Kenya - April - July 2024

The final leg of my journey ends in Kenya, where I have been offered a student teaching position for three months at St Andrew’s Prep School, 8.500 feet high above the Great Rift Valley. Founded by missionaries in the 1930s, St Andrew’s has an incredible history, and reputation, and has grown over the years, to become one of Kenya’s leading schools. It is a full boarding school and children come from all around East Africa to attend it. My father did his gap year at the school way back in the 1990s and I have heard many great things, including the fact that my parents met as they both did their gap years teaching in Kenya! I will be assisting in the Drama and Sports departments, along with boarding house duties. It will be their rugby season, so I am looking forward to that. The school provides board and lodgings, but essentially it is a voluntary position.

How can you help?

1) Fundraising

I am needing to raise funds to fund this year (in the region of £5,500, and would love for you to support me in this. In order to raise funds, I am going to do a sponsored walk, where I will climb all fourteen 3,000 mountains in one day in Wales in a 24-hour period.

The funds I raise will go directly to supporting me in volunteering for the year and will cover my costs including travel, flights, insurance, vaccinations, equipment and other associated expenses with the year.

I will aim to keep in touch throughout my year by sending regular updates.

Thank you for spending the time reading this letter and I look forward to hearing from you!