Press Cuttings

Among the unusual breaks targeting the adventure and experience-seeking over-50s are i-to-i.com ’s African wildlife art course (lasting up to six months) and their Gardening in the Galapagos volunteering break (introducing organic farming methods and preserving the natural habitat of this sensitive region).

"I'd read articles about older gap-year backpackers and thought, if they can do it why can't I?...I flew to Costa Rica to spend six weeks teaching English. I remember sitting in the airport feeling terrified...I felt like turning back. But after that wobbly moment I didn't look back.'"

Spend a two-week holiday sharing your passion for football with children from disadvantaged backgrounds in the city of Posadas, Argentina. You will live with a local family and work alongside coaches to oversee training sessions and competitions between local teams.
Two week placements from £595pp, excl flights with i-to-i (0870 333 2332, i-to-i.com).

Having retired after 33 years of teaching, I wanted to do some conservation work. I found a panda programme in China through a company called i-to-i, spoke to one of the co-ordinators and paid my deposit there and then. My family were shocked, especially as I had never even flown on my own. My daughter told me to go for it....i-to-i provided a house in Xi'an where volunteers from different projects stayed. Although I was probably the oldest there I never felt out of place. In my spare time I visited museums and pagodas. Doing it on my own gave me a sense of achievement and made me more assertive.

Camilla Hicks had no idea where Guatemala was when she volunteered to spend two months there working in a boys' orphanage. "Lots of people went to Australia or South America for their gap year," the 20-year-old said. "But I didn't want to do the same route everyone was doing. South America is so like the Caribbean. And I'd never heard of Central America, so I thought that would be different."

Spring found me on the other side of the world, teaching English at a middle school in Beijing with i-to-i, the gap-year company. The classes comprised 40 to 50 students dressed in gleaming white tracksuits with blue and red flashes, the school giving the impression of an Olympic training academy. They had the discipline to match, with choreographed exercises and flag-raising at dawn, lessons beginning at 7am and an optional “English Corner" after school. In return for the long hours, we were showered with hospitality, housed in luxury apartments, assigned minders whenever we left the school and given all kinds of gifts. We forged close friendships, being invited back to students’ homes in the holidays and taken out to bars by some of our own age. Four years on, I am still in touch with many and have been back to visit.
Read the full article here

When I arrive at the i-to-i house in Rio de Janeiro, I spot a few worrying similarities to this year's Big Brother house. There are around 15 excitable girls, just one guy, and a hot tub on the terrace. But these housemates are not searching for fame - far from it. They have chosen to spend some precious time pre-, post- and in between education doing voluntary work in Brazil. The hot tub, alas, turns out to be empty, to conserve water.
Read the full article here

This two-week trip, working with vets and biologists at a rehabilitation centre in Sarawak, is serious conservation – hands-on here means tracking orang-utans through leech-infested rainforest, not hugging them as you gurn for your Nikon. Based close to Kuching, the trip includes longboat river trips and waterfall hikes, market visits and temple tours, plus two nights by the beach in Kubah National Park.

"Following my A-levels, and a lot more thought, I decided I really wanted to study English literature. I then began thinking about my gap year and decided to teach. While I was terrified by the idea, I was also thrilled at the thought of standing in front of a classroom and being asked to teach English as a foreign language. The gap year organisation i-to-i seemed ideal, offering all the experiences I wanted. I ended up teaching in Bangalore for just over two months and then went travelling afterwards, feeling much more confident and comfortable in another country, culture and lifestyle."
Read the full article here

A number of organisations, including www.i-to-i.com, offer supported placements on volunteer projects, such as Panda conservation in China. These can teach skills, and sometimes languages, that most employers rate highly. Paid work is an alternative for those not taking a sabbatical from work. A TEFL course costs from about £150 to £400 and will enable you to teach English abroad. Placements in East Asia offer payment of more than £1,000 a month, plus free flights and accommodation. Read the full article here

“A volunteer holiday to Costa Rica was exactly the challenge I’d been looking for. I’d gone as far as I could with my job and wanted to experience a different way of life, so I handed in my notice and signed up for three months. I started out teaching English in the tiny village of San Francisco, then moved to the coast to work with leatherback turtles, patrolling the beaches and swimming in the ocean to observe them. The day I left, I wept all the way to the airport. Costa Rica had taken a little piece of my heart."

The Teach Inn project in Niyakasiru, southern Uganda, was set up by British entrepreneurs Deirdre Bounds (the founder of ethical travel company i-to-i), Seb Bishop and Tony Callaghan as part of a Channel 4 documentary to be broadcast this autumn....The hotel will provide a base for international volunteers, but also helps fund future community development projects in the area, with all the profits made from volunteers staying in the hotel being invested back into community projects

I'd suggest a Meaningful Travel (www.i-to-i.com) volunteer project in India. There's one in Bangalore costing £895 for two weeks (£60 per additional week) with start dates on 22 July and 5 August, including accommodation and meals. She could then tag on two/three weeks travelling at the end.
Read the full article here 

Based with a local family in the capital, Tegucigalpa, you’ll be working on an English-language newspaper, reporting on politics, sport and current affairs. This is gap one-upmanship on an almost indecent scale. Basic Spanish is a must, while school-newspaper experience, though not essential, will help your application. 

i-to-i also has teams at each of its projects who look after gappers, but as Jo Little explains: "it's not a case of smothering them and holding their hands- it's just having that security in case they do run into any difficulties."

I-to-I (0870 333 2332; www.i-to-i.com) has a two-week film course in Cape Town from August, that gives you the chance to create a documentary by learning skills in class and visiting various projects. It costs £2,995, excluding flights. Or try the two-week 'Way of the Warrior' project in the Malaysian jungle, where gappers apply the teachings of ancient warriors to modern life, learning martial arts, survival skills and leadership strategies (£995).

"There's more to the jungle than D-rate slebs - like kayaking, rafting and sleeping out in it for the night on i-to-i's new Borneo Summer Camp for 16-19 year olds. They also run volunteer programmes. £995 for two weeks, inc all meals but not flights."
Read the full article here

If you want to feel really good about your holiday why not combine it with some volunteering? i to i offers 'meaningful tours' including one in Argentina. You'll spend five days volunteering either at an orphanage or at an animal rehabilitation project before embarking on a tour of the stunning Misiones province.

"...we have to understand why there is a demand for the travel organisations in the first place, that NGOs are keen to employ international volunteers, but often can't afford to recruit them. Ethical travel organisations step in to provide the right volunteers from the developed world."

They will be working with African children who have to work in fields rather than go to school because their parents can't afford the fees. The project aims to give children an education while providing a steady income for the village from profits made at a volunteers' hotel in Niyakasiru. Read the full article here

For arty types: paint hostels in Rio
What’s involved? Painting houses in the favelas of Santa Teresa to create a rainbow-coloured hillside mural. How will I help? Painting is only part of the job. There’s also cleaning, plastering and general maintenance. What about time off? Laze on the beach at Ipanema, practice samba in Lapa or take a trip to Mount Corcovado. Right on rating: 9. You’ll live like a local – you’re even expected to cook for yourself. Fun rating: 6. Well, you are in Brazil’s party capital.

Several of the trips offered by i-to-i Travel give you the chance to contribute to local communities and the environment while topping up your tan and improving your surf skills. As well as longer volunteering opportunities around the world, there are two week trips to a range of destinations where you can catch some waves and make a difference at the same time.

The company runs two trips: a Maori culture course and conservation project near Wellington and a conservation project in Auckland region. The trips last from two to 12 weeks and include tree planting, maintaining walking paths and manual labour work. Only launched in December, i-to-i now has trips leaving weekly for NZ and a month on month bookings increase of 30 per cent.

“A few months later, a friend told me about i-to-i, a travel company that organises volunteer holidays all around the world. I’d be able to travel to Africa and do something good for the local community while I was there. It seemed to be the perfect solution and a booked a two-week trip to Kenya. I was going to work at a children’s orphanage in Mombasa with other volunteers, then go on a weekend safari – just like I’d seen on the telly!"

Two weeks in Kenya helping AIDS orphans in Mombassa with i-to-i costs £795 per person, including accommodation, meals and transfers and a weekend TEFL course (teaching English as a foreign language) before you go (0870 333 2332; www.i-to-i.com).

Meanwhile, Jo Little from i-to-i added: "Asia has always been one of our most visited regions, but recently there's been a real shift in popularity with some of our more visited countries taking a slight step back and India and Vietnam really coming to the fore. Both are culturally rich and exciting to explore and are great examples of the incredible diversity that Asia has to offer. Demand has been so great that we've introduced new projects and tours throughout Vietnam and India. We've also broadened our Asian destinations, adding incredible new countries such as Tibet, Nepal and Philippines with Bhutan and Indonesia on the way!"

“Working on a two-week placement based on Sri Lanka’s south-west coast, 70km from the capital, Colombo, you’ll have no such thing as a typical day. From painting classrooms and entertaining kids to Teaching English and planting trees, you’ll undertake a range of tasks all with the aim of encouraging self-reliance and re-establishing a sense of community. This character-building trip, organised by travel company i-to-i, also gives you the opportunity to bag a TEFL qualification – valuable currency for future travels. Meanwhile, all you have to bring is two pairs of heavy-duty gardening gloves and a can-do attitude."

Grab your binoculars and your ranger hat as i-to-i (0870 333 2332/www.i-to-i.com) has launched a 14-day Ultimate Kruger Wildlife Tour of South Africa which pulls out all the stops. After venturing through the Karongwe game reserve and the spectacular Blyde River Canyon, you will be in the heart of The Kruger National Park. Here you will go in search of the "Big Five" on game drives and walks and learn about bushcraft and 4x4 driving techniques.

But why volunteer? Apart from the undeniable appeal of getting up close and personal with Yang Yang and his friends, the experience offers a chance to get under the skin of China, something that travellers will usually find harder to achieve than in most other destinations. 

How do you ask your boss for three months off so you can volunteer in Cambodia? What do you do about your mortgage while you're sailing round the Caribbean? These and other burning questions that worry wannabe career gappers are answered in Gimme A Break - A Career Breaker's Guide to a Life Less Ordinary, a manual for those trying to escape the rat race. It has been published by the volunteer travel specialist I-to-I... Read the full article here

Take a mini-gap
Swap office life for an outdoors hands-on task deep in the South American rainforest. This placement in Ecuador includes planting seeds, cutting roofing materials and building huts. It costs £845 for two weeks. Visit www.i-to-i.com

If you've ever fancied exploring the heart of Aotearoa, now is your chance. Last month, i-to-i- the volunteer travel and leading TEFL training organisation- launched their Maori culture course for 2007, offering participants a chance to learn about the ways of the Maori.

This well-established British company's slogan is "Escape to the Real World." i-to-i sends over 5,000 people a year to 500 projects in 23 countries, as well as training 15,000 people to teach English as a foreign language. Their most popular programs are in conservation: working with lions in South Africa, turtles in Costa Rica, or wallabies in Australia. The company also offers a range of opportunities like coaching soccer in Honduras or helping children in Sri Lanka.

Train to be a wildlife ranger in South Africa
Run by volunteer travel specialist, i-to-i, this course offers a basic training programme that combines wildlife observation with practical bush skills. This is not a luxury safari picnic for the faint-hearted. You’ll be camping in basic tents with outdoor communal bathrooms, wake up every day before dawn to the sounds of lions roaring and then head off to the training school for daily classroom-based lectures and individual research tasks.

Volunteer travel specialists such as i-to-i set up tsunami relief projects and have sent a steady stream of paying volunteers to do aid work. "Local community members requested the name of our project be changed to omit the word "tsunami" around six months ago," says Jo Little of i-to-i. "The main focus now is on helping the community move on and get back on their feet"

One of the first things Alan and I did was organise a Christmas party for 300 people. We spent Christmas Day handing out food, clothes and presents donated by locals. Christianity is very important to Kenyans, and they get excited about Christmas- but about the religious meaning of it, not all the presents, commercialism and excess.

Only one in six world travellers considers the environmental impact of their next trip, according to travel specialist i-to-i. In a survey of over 1,000 people, around a third (30%) of those questioned claimed they were concerned that irresponsible travellers are destroying the world, while 32% said that they were worried that future generations wouldn't be able to enjoy the travel opportunities available now.

The Cuero y Salado wildlife refuge on the Caribbean coast of Honduras protects 10% of the world's population of sea cows. You can volunteer to work there (for a minimum of four weeks), patrolling the river, observing wildlife (jaguar, alligators, monkeys, boa constrictors) clearing trails and tour guiding. One of dozens of volunteer holidays from i-to-i. Read the full article here

The volunteer organisation I-to-I is offering travellers the chance to go behind the scenes at the Rio carnival, to help build floats and create costumes at the city's samba schools. The project work is available for four 12-week periods throughout December and January in preparation for the festival on 17-20 February, and costs from £695 per person, excluding flights. Read the full article

Throughout December and January, i-to-i (i-to-i.com) is offering the chance to help out behind the scenes at the Rio Carnival. Volunteers will be based at the new "samba city", where local samba schools build their floats and create their costumes in preparation for the February 17-20 extravaganza. Placements last four-12 weeks, and prices start at £695 excluding flights.

Leeds students are being asked to clear out their surplus stationery in a bid to help underprivileged communities overseas. Travel specialist i-to-i is asking for unwanted pens, pencils, paper, erasers, sharpeners, staplers and calculators - and is sending a customised VW campervan to help collect them. Read the full article here

Travelling with the Leeds-based volunteer company i-to-i, the team built and furnished the centre which will be used mainly by mothers and women from the local community.

Likewise, i-to-i have seen a similar increase in business. In the last five years, the number of volunteers aged between 30 and 50 has increased by a staggering 2,000%. Again, 70% of their travellers are female.

Travel specialists i-to-i say their online TEFL course is now outselling their face-to-face weekend course two-to-one. This year, more than 6,000 students enrolled, and they predict the figure to rise by 40% in 2007. So how does it work? It's quite simple: you sign up, log in, and a 10-module course awaits you. Stage one starts off gently, with a task to write a short blurb on what makes a sucessful teacher. You enter your responses, then click to submit. In less than 48 hours, your work will have been marked and you can progress to the next stage.

Escape's picks of the week: The rail journey. Volunteer travel specialist i-to-i (0870 333 2332; www.i-to-i.com) has launched two 'meaningful train tours' combining sightseeing and adventure with aid work for underprivileged communities in India or China. Each lasts 15 days and costs £925, excluding flights.

“I had had a great gap year that was mainly about pleasure," says Birkett. “I felt it was time to give something back. The charity i-to-i has been involved in the project for 10 years and the first houses it built are still standing. Local people seemed to appreciate our help. At the same time I got to see the country and I learnt some Spanish." Read the full article here

It was the danger that brought Louisa Gibbs to the favelas. "I liked that initial feeling of being scared, the challenge of it," she says. "I didn't want to go travelling. I thought that didn't demand a lot." Inspired by books and missionaries working in Rio's slums Gibbs, 19, went to teach English with the gap year organisation i-to-i for four months earlier this year.

Hidden Tiger, Mystic River, held in the jungle an hour south of Kuala Lumpur, combines river rafting, camping and elephant tracking with community projects at Orang Asli settlement's local school. i-to-i wax lyrical about volunteers forming a new rainforest tribe and gaining inner strength - "meeting the hidden hero" - from the challenges. Read the full article

When I arrived in Sri Lanka last September, I thought I'd made a big mistake. It was beautiful and the people were very kind and gentle, but the shock of the baking heat, the insects, my accommodation (basic is a kind description), not to mention feeling homesick was not what I was expecting... 

Among the products offered by i-to-i is the opportunity to embark on a four- to 24-week supported volunteer work placement, available in exotic, remote or third world countries, including Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Peru, South Korea, Australia and more. Here you can volunteer within industries ranging from teaching, care work, archeology or conservation, to media, marketing, tourism or healthcare.

Gap year needn't put a hole in your finances: i-to-i founder Deirdre Bounds, says “With more and more people gaining top grades at university, employers are looking for other ways to identify the best workers. In spite of top-up fees we are still seeing numbers of our gap year projects steadily growing. This can only be a good thing for employers who say that graduates who have taken a gap year are more rounded interviewees than those straight from university."

Five Best... Volunteering Holidays... This is your chance to run away and join the circus. At the Picolino Circus and Art School in Salvador, north-east Brazil, volunteers work with vulnerable children, helping in drawing, painting and photography classes and teaching English. Just across the road is a white-sand beach and, at weekends, you'll be free to explore further afield. Read the full article here.

Two-thirds of employers are finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between graduate job applicants because too many are being awarded top grades, according to a new report by gap year specialist i-to-i.

Start New Year with a spring in your step... Leigh Hunt blew away her post-Christmas blues by volunteering in tsunami-hit Sri Lanka..."It was hard physical work but the local people were very thankful. It was the best thing I have ever done."

Take me on a holiday that helps... Bookings with i-to-i, an organisation that runs volunteering trips to 500 projects in 26 countries with an emphasis on conservation, rose by 33 per cent last year. It offers 4,000 projects, with the most popular destinations being India, Costa Rica and South Africa. "People realise this isn't something that only students do and that it isn't a niche product," said Sarah Horner, a spokeswoman for i-to-i. "People had their consciences pricked by the tsunami and events such as Live Eight. I suspect a lot of people have been to areas affected and realise it's no big deal to get on a plane to go back and help." Read the full article here.

Work with Giant Pandas in China... Read the full article here.

Business Essentials: i-to-i is one of a growing number of companies that is attempting to enhance the wellbeing of its staff...

The toughest holiday in the world? Christopher Hart volunteered to build a house in Honduras. It was the best month of his life...

Whether you want to teach football in Ghana or help rescue turtles in Mexico, you can. In fact, whatever it is you fancy trying, there is likely to be an organisation willing to help. Good sources of information are the Year Out Group (www.yearoutgroup.org), i-to-i (www.i-to-i.com) and gapyear.com (www.gapyear.com)

Comedienne who loved to travel went far with language courses... teaching English as a foreign language enabled Deirdre Bounds to create a business with a turnover of £7m. Now she is expanding into tours...

A Swansea pensioner has been made a chief of a village in Africa where he has taught English and raised thousands of pounds for the school. David Howells has been awarded the title of Nii Kwa Botwe the First, of the Ga tribe of Onyansnaa. Mr Howells, from West Cross in Swansea, has visited the village twice as a volunteer teacher in the last year. He travelled to the African village originally through the volunteer travel organisation i-to-i. Read the full article here.

Catrin Rowlands said that if she had the chance, she would work with street children in Latin America. "Faced with time off, I felt that I had to rise to my own challenge," Rowlands recalled. After investigating volunteer groups, she chose to work through i-to-i, an 11-year-old organisation based in Leeds.... At 34, Rowlands was older and more experienced than the gap year students who provide the main source for i-to-i volunteers, although she was not unique. About a third of volunteers are taking a career break...

Kate Dakers, age 35, from Bradshaw, West Yorkshire, taught in the Dominican Republic."I’m originally from Zimbabwe, so I’ve seen a lot of poverty close up. Initially I thought I’d take a break to get involved in a project doing something positive in Africa. But then I came across an I-to-I trip to teach English in the Dominican Republic. I learnt some Spanish before leaving and stayed with a family in Santo Domingo, the capital. It was really humbling."

Join the editorial team at one of two English-language newspapers in Ulaan Baatar or become a member of an international news agency. i-to-i promise "you'll keep busy editing and proofreading stories that cover the economy, politics, culture and sports".

Like many on a gap year, Lisa Berwin, 23, planned to combine several months of care-free travel with a stint of volunteer work - choosing i-to-i, one of the largest year out groups. She spent six months travelling in New Zealand, Australia and south-east Asia, before taking up a two-month journalism project at a newspaper in Sri Lanka.

Stevie Johnson and husband Carl say a four-month trip to Costa Rica brought them closer together... We started to look inot different ways of volunteering. We wanted to go with a company which was organised and provided 24-hour assistance. We found a travel company called i-to-i which offered exactly that.

Learning to surf on South African waves and passing on your fresh skills to disadvantaged local youngsters are two of the goals of a new travel project in Cape Town. Read the full article here.

At Kalutara, about an hour's drive south of Colombo, I came across some British volunteers who had been spending their two-week holiday helping fishermen clear rubble from the beach and visiting camps containing some of the tens of thousands who lost their homes in the tsunami.

The group had come with i-to-i, a Leeds-based company specialising in holidays for people who want to travel and contribute something to the countries they visit. In temperatures approaching 40C, the work was proving both physically and emotionally challenging, but the volunteers, of varied backgrounds and ages, said it had been extremely rewarding.

The latest fusion of holiday and sport offers the opportunity to get fit in tropical heat, help out disadvantaged Indian youngsters, and act as a talent scout for your local soccer team. Read the full article here.

Anyone thinking about a sabbatical from their career could think about teaching abroad. i-to-i works with several state primary schools throughout Hanoi in Vietnam to provide English lessons. Other i-to-i projects include marine conservation in Peru, community work with children in Nairobi and working in South African animal rescue centres.

Moved, like many, by what I saw on the television, I was jolted into joining a two-week relief project with an organisation called i-to-i... For the unfortunate residents of the Janajaya [relief] camp, where most are bedridden, i-to-i provides pretty much the only help. "We have more faith in you than in the government" says Rita Mendes, a grandmother and spokeswoman for 650 people.

Work experience and volunteer work has long been a mutually rewarding way for people to gain skills which can make them more desirable employees. Whether you want to work with children or build websites, someone, somewhere can find a use for your time. And if you want to get into a particularly competitive area of employment, overseas volunteering can be a good way to break in, as Sarah Horner from volunteer organisation i-to-i explains: "We have some more vocational projects. And these can focus on employment areas which are quite hard to break into in the UK - things like journalism or medical projects for example. Although for these projects we'd usually be looking for volunteers to have a little bit of relevant experience or knowledge on their CVs."

"Journalism, for example, can be quite competitive in the UK," she says, "so working in this area abroad can be a really valuable way of gaining experience. As well as getting work in the field, you're also often getting really hands-on because of the way the project works. In Ghana, for example you could be working on a radio station which broadcasts from someone's back bedroom, so you'll really be getting involved with the whole process. A lot of what you get out is what you put in though, and the projects work best for people who are self-starters and pro-active." Read the full article here.

Join a conservation expedition to the giant panda reservation in the Shaanxi province , home to a quarter of the world's population of the threatened bears - just 270. A four-week project which runs throughout the year, costs £1395pp with full-board and TEFL course.

Excess Baggage, presented by Sandi Toksvig: It is six weeks since the terrible tsunami which caused unprecedented loss of life and damage to so many countries. Today those beaches are still being cleared of the terrible after effects of the tragedy. In many cases resorts are desperate to re-establish themselves, if ever these countries needed the injection of money which tourism brings, it is now. Sandi talks to Deirdre Bounds, Managing Director of 'i-to-i', a holiday company who are currently providing volunteer projects in Tsunami affected areas. Listen to the programme here.

Although there's a general belief, certainly in the travel industry, that career breaks are up, pinning down hard facts and figures is tricky. So the results of a study for volunteer projects specialist i-to-i make enlightening reading...

Unskilled volunteers have been told their help is not needed in the Indian Ocean. But [i-to-i] is offering them a chance to rebuild a community. 'It's easy to send money' says Jude Fournier, a college teacher from New Mexico, 'but it feels better to get your hands dirty and put a face to the cause.' It was a sentiment shared by the rest of our group. Simon, another volunteer had contacted Unicef and Oxfam but they only wanted qualified experts. 'You don't need a certificate to put up a washing line or delouse children's hair,' Simon notes.

Linda, one of the few volunteers with any kind of trauma training [said]: 'I had to come. Despite my previous experiences this is the most important thing I've done in my life.' One of the circle, bewildered by grief placed a hand on my arm: 'Apart from you helping us we have no one. The government has promised us new houses and bring us a little food but nothing more. You come, you listen, you play with the children for a while and bring them toys. Our faith is in you, not the government." Read the full article.

Travel specialist i-to-i, which organises overseas volunteering and "meaningful" trips abroad, claims that 42% of UK employees hope to leave their current jobs during 2005, and 22% of us are keen to take a career break. Read the full article here.