About us

Project Trust has been organising long term voluntary placements in Africa, Asia and Latin America for young people since 1967, making us the most experienced educational charity specialising in overseas Volunteering for school-leavers.

From our home on the Hebridean Isle of Coll, we annually select around 300 young people from across the UK for 8 – 12 month overseas teaching, social care and outward bound projects. Working with partners overseas, these projects are carefully chosen to ensure the Volunteers’ skills can be put to good use in their host communities and do not take work away from local people.

Project Trust provides all Volunteers with training and support before, during and after their time overseas, to maximise both the educational value of their experience and the positive impact they have in their projects and host communities. Volunteers return home with broadened horizons, increased maturity and an impressive range of transferable skills. Volunteers can now receive an accreditation of a Level 3 Foundation Year in Global Volunteering and Citizenship.

Through Project Trust’s Global Citizenship programme, Volunteers are also encouraged to share their experiences and knowledge within their own communities across the UK.

Gap Year Projects

Teaching in Primary Schools
If you have a love of children, bags of enthusiasm and plenty of patience, then you could spend your Gap Year teaching in one of the many primary school projects which Project Trust offers. We’re looking for Volunteers with good communication skills as well as lots of energy and imagination to work in primary schools across the world.

You’ll enjoy building a good rapport with your class and interaction with the children is one of the most rewarding parts of teaching on your Gap Year. Having a good sense of humour always helps too! Your role is to motivate pupils with fun, engaging and informative lessons which you will use your organisational skills to plan and prepare.

Teaching in Secondary Schools
Secondary school is often seen as the most crucial and demanding time of a student’s academic career. If you have been particularly successful during your time in secondary school in ICT, Maths or Science, you can use your natural flair to spend your Gap Year teaching dynamic and interesting lessons at our secondary school projects.

Our Volunteer teaching programme in Secondary Schools often involves teaching large classes of students from the age of 13 to 18 in a wide range of countries. We are looking for those who are passionate about their subjects and have the confidence to share this knowledge with students only a few years younger than themselves.

Social Care Volunteering
The opportunity to be involved in practical hands on social care, working with children and adults with mental or physical disabilities, providing a supportive big brother or sister role in children’s homes and having an important role in day to day care of residents, patients or children.

Our Volunteers in social care projects spend time with those in care, helping with their basic needs and also taking the role of someone fun in their life. Many of the care homes in the countries we run Volunteer programmes have staff who look after the residents but cannot provide fun activities for them as they just do not have the time. The job of the Volunteer is to give these children and adults something to look forward to, playing games, doing creative activities and taking them out of the home for some respite. They sometimes have the opportunity to teach small groups but the projects vary hugely.

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
As a native, or proficient, English speaker you are in an excellent position to pass on your knowledge to students for whom English language skills can represent a real opportunity to help build a promising future for themselves. As a language teacher, you are able to be very creative with your lessons. Think back to when you were a student; do you remember the tedious hours you would spend on grammar and idioms? Think how you could change that for your own students as their teacher. Make your lessons dynamic and interactive, play games and do role plays and encourage your students to use their English in as many interesting contexts as possible.

Outward Bound
If you are fit, active and love the outdoors, check out our Outward Bound projects. You will be involved in running courses for people of all ages and backgrounds and one of your main goals will be to improve the self-confidence of the participants as well as encouraging teamwork and trust. Courses and work schedules are often very physically and mentally challenging for both staff and students so be ready to get stuck in!

The breadth of experience in a range of activities that you gain over the year is quite astonishing. It will be particularly useful for anyone interested in instructing, group leading or being involved in adventurous jobs in the future. The different projects vary, but you can be involved on any given day with activities such as kayaking, wall climbing, trekking, sailing, rafting or leading team games.

Find out more about any of our gap year projects on our projects page.

How to apply?

Project Trust, as an inclusive educational charity, is fully committed to supporting young people aged 17-25 with the desire, motivation, and aptitude required to experience having A Year With No Gaps.

To apply for a placement visit our website and fill in the application form.

If you are successful, we’ll invite you to book on to a Selection Course (please don’t try to book on to a Selection Course until we’ve processed your application).

Find out more

If you would like to know more about the opportunities we can offer or the work we do then please visit our website.