Kenya Summer Program

As an 18-year-old sixth form student, I chanced to hear about AV at a gap fair put on by my college. Not particularly knowing where I wanted to travel, only that travel I would, I started talking to Andrew and an ex-student / AV volunteer about their 5 week summer projects in Africa. About 4 months later I boarded Kenya Airways flight KQ0101 bound for Nairobi, from where a connecting flight would take us on to Mombasa. It is impossible to summarise all the fantastic memories and shared experiences of the trip, which ranged from seeing a wild leopard cub at Shimba Hills Game Reserve and later sailing a traditional Kenyan dhow to singlehandedly teaching classes of forty primary school children and seeing the renovation of a dilapidated classroom to completion. I made some great friends on the trip too, some of whom came from as far afield as the Netherlands and China, and I think it’s fair to say that they were all just as sorry as I was when our project eventually came to an end and we had to go our separate ways. In short, I can’t recommend AV highly enough. The UK office is clearly very well run and always on hand to assist in any way it can, and their representative on the ground in Africa, Charles, who was with us for the duration of the project always made us feel completely at ease and looked after despite being in such foreign land as Kenya. You couldn’t find a better gap year company than AV if you tried!