Travellingbug | You don't have to be rich to volunteer!

Travellingbug is a newly established initiative intent on making volunteering abroad more accessible, for both the charity and the volunteer.

Ever been horrified at the cost of volunteering? Ask a company offering gap year placements where your placement fee goes. In nearly every case you will find that your fees will be justified by inflated overheads, though really creating company profit.

These huge fees - sometimes exceeding £2,000 - exclude many people who would like to work with international communities; they are just too expensive.

Travellingbug - set up by Bath students frustrated with the current situation - aims to provide a cheaper and more flexible means of volunteering abroad that benefits the charity and local community where volunteers go, and charges a one-off fixed fee of £350. The aim: to run a business that makes both volunteering more accessible and a more sustainable income for poverty-stricken communities.

By travelling independently, volunteers pay third world prices instead of the UK mark-up of their travel arrangements. In Bolivia last year, eight Bath volunteers ate in the markets for 30p a meal, and stayed in a mansion-like hotel for £2.50 a night.

Volunteers can plan their own trip and do other things while out in Africa or South America. Last year, some volunteers decided to rake a weekend off and see the jungle, while other ate Argentinean steak and trekked through Inca ruins in Peru, before or after working in Bolivian childcare centres.

A sum of £100 from each volunteer’s fee is donated directly to the charity with whom volunteers work, fuelling economic development. Micro-finance schemes have been established such that last years’ volunteers’ fees have benefited over 250 families every day since October, and will do tomorrow,

Travellingbug, backed by SIFE Bath students, uses the rest if the volunteers’ fee to ensure there is a genuine need for them on location, and to make sure that people work at responsible charities. Similarly, all volunteers are checked to be sure their time and skills will be well utilised at the charity.

This year, as well as working with the women’s and children’s welfare charity in Bolivia, and Ugandan charity has asked for a team of 20 Bath students to run a Summer Camp in August for the orphans in its care, and you are in demand! If you want to be a part of a project, now is the time to be applying.

All project details can be found at www.travellingbug.com, and you can get in touch with Maths undergraduate and Project Co-ordinator Ian Woolley at irw22@bath.ac.uk.