Global Leadership Adventures (GLA) Reviews

I highly recommend this trip to anyone who loves kids, adventure, and the beach! Puerto Plata is a beautiful place to spend your volunteer experience at. I went on the beachside service adventure for 10 days. I accomplished so much in 10 days!

The highlights of my trip was spending my time building a bottle school for the children of this village, jumping off a waterfall, meeting wonderful people, and hiking for 3 hours straight! Everything was so worthwhile and amazing.

The food you will eat on the trip really allows you get the feeling for the culture! It basically is rice, beans, chicken, and fruit everyday! It's so delicious!

You will meet people from all over the country and learn so many things on your journey. You will learn anything from how to mix cement in the scorching heat with a shovel to how to negotiate a price on something from the local stores.

This place is seriously worthwhile and if anybody has any questions about the trip, please email me at mollimcgrath@gmail.com

GLA offer a fantastic Ghana Program, that involves a perfect combination of community service, exploration and socialising.

The program offers a wide range of activities that enable students to really immerse themselves in the local culture - at points, I myself felt like a Ghanaian.

Safety is impeccable.

Highly recommended.

Travelling to Ghana with GLA was one of the most influential experiences of my life. Throughout the trip, you'll work with children in primary schools by teaching and building bricks to contribute to expanding the schools. This is probably the best part of the trip, as you'll get to truly connect with the children you're teaching and see them grow as students. In between classes, you'll learn so much from them, as well, just by talking to them and asking questions about their lives. On the weekends, GLA takes students on fun excursions to different parts of the Ghanaian coast, including a visit to slave forts, a monkey sanctuary, and Kakum National Park. The trip is so much fun on top of being incredibly educational. It's a life-changing experience to be so immersed in this culture, and you'll never forget it!

As a student who had never been to Asia, this program was truly incredible because it made me discover the real Thailand. On a day to day basis, get to work and help in a local community and meet people you would never see on a tipical holiday ! I was immersed in a new culture that I got to discover and love during those three weeks !
I had the summer of my life while helping others, and won't ever forget it !

This program is very hands on. What I liked about the trip was that we not only volunteered in one place in India, but traveled to many places. I don’t want to give too much away but my favorite part was going on a camping type excursion and just playing cricket with the local kids and helping out the locals.

From my experience I can also say that the mentors were very flexible to what we wanted to do. I remember a few of us wanted to play some basketball with the locals and so someone took us up to the court to play with them.

Also, it is not only about volunteering, the program mentors also teach us leadership skills and encourage us to take part in global problems and solutions that could be implemented.

As a Summer Search student I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Bali, Indonesia this past summerWhile in Bali, I worked with disabled children, attended religious ceremonies, and interacted with the community. Working with the handicapped children was one of the most rewarding things I have done.
I went to the school with the intention of teaching them some English, but as it turned out, the students taught the teacher. They taught me look at life in a new perspective, and that as long as one is happy, everything else will harmonically fall into place. The native people helped me truly experience the life of a Balinese woman, whether it was through riding motor bikes, eating their exquisite dishes, learning how to tie a sarong, learning their traditional dance, or making offerings for the spirits. Ever since, I feel more confident with the decisions I take, and more confident with myself all around

Overall, my experience in India was great. But, of course, who wouldn't have enjoyed an opportunity to travel abroad and experience a totally different culture. Moreover, as a foreigner exploring India made things seem fascinating. I loved the fact that we got to spend time outdoors and really engaged ourselves within the local village (Kereri Village). However, I would have liked to have had a better knowledge on the Indian culture, so as to better understand the people and their experiences. I also would have liked to have established a personal relationship with the families that we were doing service work for; I think it would have made the work feel more meaningful.

The food was great, the staff even better because they were willing to answer any questions I would have, and provide further explantions. They were also very inviting. For example, I got to spend time with our cook for the camping part of my experience. He taught me how to make certain Indian cuisines, and through my time with him, I was able to better assess the cultural values of Indians, and that they are certainly no difference between an average person (only that there may be a language barrier).

The most inspirational and somewhat saddening part was really experiencing the poverty of the country. Since you are not really living there as a normal citizen would, it is hard to really grasp the intensity of the poverty level there, but to see children run up to your van, begging and asking, and even trying to sell you cheap balloons and toys would made anyone one sympathetic. These children often have no parents and must fend for themselves...it's really sad.

We saw the Taj Mahal, got to spend time with children at a local day care center (though because of the color of my skin, I was looked upon differently, compared to the other students), toured an ancient ruin, got to shop at really good high fashioned stores, visited the Dalai Lama temple, were informed about the Tibetan/Indian crisis (in Dharamshala). There was so much to see and love, especially waking up to the sight of the Himalayan mountains pretty much next to your window. I even got a haircut for 80 rupees, equivalent to $1.51 USD, plus they gave me a head massage.

I felt that we sort of spent more time relaxing than actually immersing ourselves in the culture, as I would have liked. Yes, relaxing was very....relaxing, but I wanted to become apart of India, not just be there. With that said, I had a great time in India and it certainly felt like a home away from home. I truly felt connected to the country and was saddened to have to leave.

Oh, make sure to book the group flight on your way home, you would definitely want to be with the people you have made personal connections with; lets just say that it won't be easy saying goodbye.

I went during the summer of 2011, and this trip is an incredible opportunity. Not only do you get a chance to glimpse at India's unique and beautiful culture, but work with wonderful organizations as well.
I feel that this trip opens the students' eyes to things they might not have known or ecperienced before.
Parents--the prorgam is very safe and you do not have to worry about your children. I got sick when I was in Dharamsala, and the GLA staff took care of me efficiently. Your kids will come home with a new global perspective and appreciation.

Basically, this Bali trip was the most amazing experience of my life thus far. I'm a traveler at heart, so I dealt with the changes easily, but there was nothing that a little change in perspective couldn't fix for anybody.
On a regular day, we would plan to be leaving the homestay by 9:30am, but with the easy going mentality of the Balinese, most days it was more like 10am. This no worries mind-set really teaches you to relax and enjoy. Every morning we had breakfast at the homestay and ate most of our other meals out. The food was delicious (a lot of rice, yum!), and sometimes I wasn't even sure what I was eating, but I was never disappointed!
For a lot of the mornings, we went to a school to help out the teachers, and hang out with the kids for the day playing games and teaching them some English. We really were able to form amazing relationships with these kids even with the language barrier.
While the trip to Bali was only 2 weeks (for me, some had 3), it completely changed the way I look at life. Witnessing and partaking in the Balinese culture is a true learning experience that really expands your construct of reality. Now at home, almost a year later, everyday something reminds me of the time I spent in Bali, or the friends I made there. This trip is an experience that you will truly never forget.

Enrolling with Global Leadership Adventures in India was the best three weeks I have ever experienced. It was packed with physical endurance, leadership sessions, teamwork, the committment to serve and help a community and lots of sightseeing. I made many friends across the globe and arrived home feeling enlightened and held new perspectives on the world.

In the first week, we hiked an enduring 12km from Dharamsala to Kareri Village, a small village located in the picture-esque Himalayas. The views were stunning and beautiful, seeing Himalayan mountains and little houses scattered across. Throughout the first week, we all were immersed in different community-service activities during each day: the physical labour of building a house, planting rice paddles, working in a children's day-care centre, and many more! Drinking Chai tea was delicious and replenishing, and we also ate a good vegetarian diet that consisted of: rice, chapati and lentils. Not to add we sampled the monsoon rain season, as it poured hard and made many huddle together in our tents, but was all good fun of the experience.

The second week was great fun too, as we helped assist The Mountain Cleaners, an NGO, whereby we learnt the environmental issues that India faces, and taught that to students and children. It was a gratifying, humbling experience when we were taught in great depth of what it means to be a leader, and learnt about the struggle of Tibetan independence.

Overall, the program was very safe and secure, and the Program Directors made sure we called our families when we arrived at the airport and plenty more times throughout the entire duration of the program. I became very attached to the place and the people, and it taught me the qualities of leadership, independence and happiness.