The choice of which country to travel to is made difficult for one fundamental reason. Choosing one place over another means forgoing the chance to explore one place over another. On a very basic level, we face these choices every time we visit a restaurant. Meat or fish?Steak or Red Snapper?

And so it is with travel. Africa or South America? Ghana or Guyana?

There are many factors that will influence your position on search engines and that’s why SEO experts charge a lot of money. What about NGOs? they don’t have big budgets, so how do they get indexed on the first positions on organic searches? unfortunately, the reality is that they do not. Looking at the Gapyear niche, big companies are fighting everyday to get better ranks and positions on the web leaving NGOs with small or null budgets far far behind, sadly the strongest (economically speaking) will get better results. I think this is very unfair, and we want to do something about it.

Here in Gawana, we incline to support NGOs and projects that need volunteers to survive, i want to be very clear in that point, most volunteering projects and organisations are looking for Social Change without significant budgets and without the intention of becoming rich in the process, i believe they are the ones that need our support, resources and creativity, Big or small corporations, they all need your help, some of them need your money and some your work, you have the last word.

But how can you take this important decision if those projects around the world (more than you can imagine) are virtually impossible to find on the web, well, here’s where Gawana enters the equation.

The battle for good positions on search engines have created a gap between the serious, worthwhile Volunteering Projects and the big corporations on the web, we aim to change that by making the “weak” ones competitive and making them accessible. So you can choose where to place your money, creativity and work, on a big office in London or New York or a tiny primary school in Kathmandu.

We have developed a model that we called Gap Year 2.0. We believe that if we get together we will create social change where is needed.

The empty google box stares at me, expectantly. What do I want to know? Why not try “How can I help the world” – just 469 million results appear. Seems there is no shortage of answers to that question. Where do I start? I browse through the first page and discover that volunteering seems a good place to begin the journey. A paid ad takes me to a site called the “GVN Foundation” a non governmental organisation based in New Zealand. The site enthuses me with great ideas about volunteering. My enthusiasm is short lived. To join one of the projects I first have to pay $350 which is transferable to the project and if I am (and they, I guess) accepted as a volunteer. My presence in South Africa on a conservation project for 8-weeks comes in at $1947.

$1947 + flights, visa (if required), travel insurance and personal spending money. It strikes me that helping the world is an expensive intention. My search continues. I encounter website after website offering life-changing volunteer opportunities. Projects are offered by NGO’s, charities, not-for-profit and outright businesses but regardless of their registered status they all charge you money to participate.

Interestingly when you compare two organisations, one set-up as a not-for-profit (Voluntary Projects Overseas) and another established to make a profit (Projects Abroad) all things being equal you can crudely work out the profit that the latter makes. Two examples:

Teaching in Bolivia – VPO = £1500 for 3 months – PA = £1845 for 3 months (£345 profit)

Let’s take another example

Teaching in South Africa – VPO = £1900 for 3 months – PA = £2595 for 3 months (£695 profit)

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not against paying to do voluntary work or people making profits. I have a Masters in Business Administration for goodness sake. My question is why is that?

Have you volunteered? Great! How was it? Have you volunteered again? If yes, was the basic service any different the second time around?

I would love to hear from anybody who has taken a Gap Year with an organisation and what you thought of the service, value for money and whether (if you experienced the services of two organisations) the service provided had improved since your first project…

Looking forward to hearing from you.

John

If you’re looking for some travel inspiration you must watch this video. Matt is an Australian who travels the world dancing while his girlfriend films his moves. The description doesn’t sound very exciting right? well have a look and enjoy but be careful you might want to pack and catch a plane right after!

Here’s the link to the HOME official youtube channel

I found this post on the Telegraph.co.uk website and is worth to share it. I love the fact that they mentioned “The Journals” by Captain Cook as one of these 20 travel inspiring books, some of them i never heard of, i guess i’ll be visiting Amazon after i published this post.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

Carl Sagan on “Pale Blue Dot”

Here’s the link to the Telegraph article. Enjoy!

Digital Photography School is one of the most important photography sites on the web with high quality articles, “The art of travel photography” a very well set up post.

Photo Tuts is also a very important high quality blog, full of great tutorials; check the post “7 Tips for Taking Travel Photos Like a Pro”

TrekEarth is a Travel Photography Community with a vast database of photos, surely you’ll find inspiration there. Great place to display your work.

Travel Photographers Network is a reunion place for travel photography enthusiasts, the site is full of resources and even contests.

Hope this post is useful for your future photographic travels, remember to share your pics with the Gawana Family.

Cheers

This is a very inspirational talk, his creative mind and driven personality are an example of what we believe here in Gawana. Enjoy it

Wade Davis gave a talk at the famous TED conference in Monterey California in 2003, enjoy this video and read his book!