Summer vacation

Short on cash but looking to get out and about during the summer? Ever thought about volunteering? 

Elly Battisby, 25; Jo Cackett, 26; and Joseph Gardenne, 21, are three young Europeans who all say their best summer vacations were spent volunteering. They all agree that volunteering is not just a way to give back, it’s also a way to travel and get to know another community.

Elly Battisby: Le Festival de Martigues

Having to interpret an argument between a French choreographer and a group of Indonesian dancers is no picnic, but for Elly Battisby, this is just another fond memory from her summer spent volunteering as a guide and interpreter for the Festival de Martigues, an international folklore dance festival, in Martigues, France.

“All of it was fantastic,” she gushes.

Elly, who graduated with a Degree in the French and German Languages, is currently working as a German customer services representative for an international manufacturing company in England.

Originally from Shrewbury, England, Elly spent a semester studying in Aix En Provence, France. She learned about this volunteer opportunity through her host university. In exchange for her translation services, Elly was housed in a quaint Provencal hotel and got to eat all the cheese and baguettes she wanted. Elly spent three weeks translating for a group of Thai dancers. On the last day they dressed her up in traditional Thai garments.

“It was a great way of using my French skills and it opened my eyes to different cultures, traditions and art from across the world.” 

Jo Cackett: Association de la Fondation Etudiante pour la Ville    

“I learned invaluable life skills that I apply every day in my current job,” says Jo Cackett. She spent her summer volunteering to set up a committee for the Association de la Fondation Etudiante pour la Ville (Association for the Student Foundation of the City) in Valenciennes, France.

Jo studied French and Linguistics in England, she knew that she wanted a career that involved languages.  It was thanks to this volunteer experience that she is now enjoying a career in education management, working in Sales and Marketing for EF Education First, a company that offers language exchanges for students.

The programme focused on family literacy. Jo and a team of passionate volunteers tried to come up with new ways to bring books into the homes of children struggling in school who came from disadvantaged families – many had illiterate parents.

Jo volunteered with the organisation for  two months. First she visited local schools and community centres to familiarise herself with the project. Once comfortable, she helped her colleagues develop and present the project to local partners to try and raise funds for the next year.

Her fondest memory is getting positive feedback from the families, “about how the project had changed the lives of their children.”

Joseph Gardenne: Solidarité France-Népal

Solidarité France-Nepal, a microfinance development project set up in 1995, was the idea of a handful of students from HEC Paris – International Business School. Joseph Gardenne, a current HEC masters student, joined the organization when he started his masters. He traveled with them as a volunteer on the trip of a life-time to Nepal.

Joseph hopes to become a corporate lawyer and this volunteer experience allowed him to test out his, “business studies, project building and financial skills,” in an exotic environment.

What did he learn? “How to adapt to completely new situations; how to adapt to the people; and how to adapt to the spirit of a place.”

Volunteers worked for one and a half months and then spent “two glorious weeks” trekking through the mountains. Before taking off, the group spent a year fundraising and raised €12,000, all of which was given out as loans to entrepreneurs in rural Nepalese villages. 

“Epic!” That’s how Joseph describes the experience. His best memory is a road trip to a neighbouring village to buy sewing machines for one of the microfinance projects they were overseeing. “Epic road trip in an old jeep on roads destroyed by the monsoon! Epic negotiations! Epic!”