Great experience

I was on the 5 week programme which I did in the summer between doing my A levels and going to University. I wasn't doing a gap year and so the length of time this project went on for was ideal.

I felt the programme had the perfect mix of volunteering and other activities, we had travelled to Kenya and so it was great to do a wide range of activities the country had to offer. These included climbing Mount Kenya and going on Safari.

We spent the first 3 weeks working in the school building. This involved working on the efforts of many previous groups to finish of a classroom, seeing the end result was highly rewarding. My only criticism of this was that the building was hard work which a few of our group found understandably difficult and didn't enjoy. Those of us who wanted to did teaching in the afternoons, because we were there for only a short amount of time it was difficult to guage how useful the children found this and was also difficult because some of the primary school children were actually older than me (19). We went away for 2 weekends which was great fun, notably a trip to Wasini island.

The last 2 weeks were spent climing Mt Kenya and Safari. Both were great fun and I am so glad we did them.

The group was a good bunch, however there were the obvious problems of putting 10 strangers together in quite an intense environment. Some people didn't get on but it was never an issue that had significant repercussions.

Overall it was exactly what I wanted it to be and I made a great friend who I am at the same university as.