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Treak Community Centre welcomes our volunteers

Treak Community Centre welcomes our volunteers

In their most recent newsletter, Treak Community Centre in Cambodia wrote: Volunteers are back in town! What a wonderful feeling to have volunteers back at school for the first time in 2 years. Brinje and Kristin from Norway are with us for 4 weeks, assisting in the classrooms and the library.  They will also run some science and PSHE sessions with our older students. e-volunteering (online volunteering) is here to stay In addition to our volunteers here on the ground,…

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people and places are recognised as “movers and shakers” 

people and places are recognised as “movers and shakers” 

Early in April our South African partners, Good Work Foundation picked up our latest award for us. Thanks Gemma and Fumani for representing us and all our other African partners! We’ve just won GOLD at the WTM Africa Responsible Tourism Awards These awards “ champion the very best work in Responsible Tourism on the African continent. …. – sustainability champions, changemakers, movers and shakers – who continue to make a positive impact and lead by example.“ We won the award for…

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Women’s Empowerment and Adult Education in The Gambia

Women’s Empowerment and Adult Education in The Gambia

I have just returned from three weeks in The Gambia…to catch up on the adult education and business projects we support and to learn more about the new women’s empowerment programme we are working with – No Woman Left Behind. I’m not going to write about how tough it’s been in the past couple of years in The Gambia – that’s true for most of us and certainly everywhere we work. Nor am I going to write much about the…

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Look what our project partners have achieved!

Look what our project partners have achieved!

The pandemic has hit our project partners pretty hard – but despite all the challenges there is much to celebrate. Here are just a few examples Morocco Student becomes teacher. Khadija has just started working as a teacher!”It is an amazing experience and am glad that I have this chance, because being educated was always a dream for me that came true but teaching it was just impossible even in the dream. I grew up seeing the teachers as the…

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We need your skills to empower vulnerable women – skills you may not even realise you have!

We need your skills to empower vulnerable women – skills you may not even realise you have!

We have an urgent need for skills that will support this programme that aims to give vulnerable women practical and business skills. But when we say business skills we are not talking about the ability to run a multinational – we are not just talking professional qualifications – we are looking for volunteers who can help prepare young vulnerable women for work – either in employment or running their own micro enterprise. Young women who will be so much less…

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“Reading gives us some place to go when we have to stay where we are”

“Reading gives us some place to go when we have to stay where we are”

Everyone working with our partner organisation in South Africa speaks good English – but it’s certainly not their first language.  To an extent all our e-volunteer work helps local people with conversational English – and volunteers have found the best way to approach this is by picking a different topic for conversation each week – but for this project our partners wanted a real focus on improving language and literacy.  It also needed to be fun!  They came up with…

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Our next volunteer social -you won’t need to leave home!

Our next volunteer social -you won’t need to leave home!

We are planning our next volunteer social in the next few weeks – it will be virtual and you will be able to meet previous volunteers, co-volunteers, our local partners from around the world and, of course, the people and places team – what a great way to pass a few hours this “lockdown” winter. We need your help to decide when and how we should do it – We would be really grateful if you would take just a…

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When can we volunteer abroad again?

When can we volunteer abroad again?

A number of people have contacted us suggesting they would like to travel with us as soon as possible.  This is fantastic news, and we so want that too, BUT…current travel restrictions, (both for leaving the UK an other countries and entering the countries where our partner projects are located), make volunteering on site impractical at the present time. In addition, as our partner projects are in developing countries where health care facilities may not be the same as in…

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we’ve just won an award for our work during the pandemic!

we’ve just won an award for our work during the pandemic!

We, at people and places highly value recognition from such prestigious  awards as the WTM World Responsible Tourism Award. This year the judges decided to commend organisations and destinations which are taking responsibility and addressing the many challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. We are particularly proud to have won The Innovation Award because people and places was conceived to innovate for better practice in the volunteer travel.  We won the award for the work we are doing to develop support and encourage e-volunteering – a…

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Why we ask for DBS or police checks for e-volunteers

Why we ask for DBS or police checks for e-volunteers

Recently we were asked why we demand DBS /police checks and references for volunteers who are offering to work online with us – (not in situ) – for the organisations with which we work. Good question and here’s our reply Our first priority is the safety of the communities and volunteers we work with. We have a duty to do all we can to ensure that the children, young people and any at risk adults that we work with are…

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