Designed by children in Codlea, Romania

After the success of our Christmas card last year; raising around £400 for Romanian Orphans, we have decided to try and beat last years record and help Codlea Children’s home even more. We already have a few keen sellers enlisted to raise money for Codlea but we need more. If you want to be able to send unique Christmas cards that you can guarantee no one else will send (Disabled children from the home designed the card themselves) or if you want to help enrich the lives of these children in Romania then please do get in touch with us and we can send you as many cards as you’d like, to sell to your friends and family. The cards are not too expensive either meaning that you should be able to sell quite a few. Roger is heading up the Christmas card project this year so you can get involved by calling him on 01892 770771 or by emailing on roger@oysterworldwide.com. We would love your help and you really would be making a difference to those orphans lives. Read the rest of this entry »

It is that time of the year again when we are busy in the office collating all of the fantastic quotes and stories that our returned participants have sent us about their time away. Our next quarterly Newsletter is due to be published before Christmas and I want to take this opportunity to invite any people that are away or have been away with us to send in to us any stories that you are bound to have from your time abroad.

Tell us something about where you were living or give a ‘Day in the life of…’ account. Maybe you feel strongly about your Gap Year and would like to write about the benefits of taking a Gap Year - let your imagination run wild!

Stories can be emailed direct to emailus@oysterworldwide.com. Read the rest of this entry »

Australia has been the most popular Gap year destination for years - around a third of Gappers are reckoned to spend some of their Gap year there. However few spend long away from the cities to see the great Outback that covers most of Australia and is key to the Australian economy and culture too.

I was lucky enough to visit Australia in October to launch Australia as a destination for us. I am delighted to say that we now offer a program that guarantees well paid work in the Outback - around £700 pcm with free food and accommodation for agricultural or hospitality work. Participants get an excellent 9 day induction and training course - this one of the reasons that Australian employers are so willing to offer work. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week we ran our biggest briefing course of the year. In total we had 31 volunteers all off to a variety of countries to work on a variety of projects in January.

We had people set to go to Nepal, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia for between 3 and 6 months. I am extremely jealous and reminds me of my Pre Departure Course back in 2003 when I was nervously getting ready to head to Tanzania!

The two days are always great fun, go very quickly and are pretty tiring for all involved (especially those that had travelled to us from afar!)

For those readers that attended the course: I would like to extend a thank you to all of you that worked hard on giving some great talks about the various aspects of your countries and also for participating so well in all of the sessions.

If you are considering taking a Gap Year, then please do consider going with an organisation that briefs you thoroughly before departure. Personally, I think it is so important to be fully prepared and understand the health, safety and cultural issues relevant to the country you are travelling to.

Finally a big thanks to Leah and Lucy – our returned volunteer helpers and also Dick Glynne Jones.

Ros Hatfield who went to Tanzania with Oyster last year has done a fantastic job raising money for Sekei Primary school where she was a volunteer teacher. Ros organised a music concert which was a huge success and raised over £1,000. That, together with £1,000 that our Tanzanian representative Madeline raised with her friends and family was enough to buy Sekei some much needed equipment and build toilets for the children providing a more hygienic environment for the 2,000 plus pupils.

For more information about our projects in Tanzania click here.

During my A levels the thought of a Gap Year never even entered my mind, UCAS forms and University visiting seemed the thing to be doing, so that’s what I did, however unenthusiastic I was about it! I knew I wasn’t ready for Uni but needed some inspiration so I did some research and found Oyster. Having never really done much traveling every placement appealed to me and the fact that they are a relatively small company made me feel secure and at ease with this new prospect of living half way around the world…something a couple of weeks before I didn’t believe I could do. Read the rest of this entry »

In July 2007, I boarded the plane to Romania without any idea of how much I would grow to love it. My three month stay passed so quickly and before I knew it, it was time to fly back to England. After working at a hospital and two family homes, coming back to my old job was a real shock and it wasn’t long before I was planning another visit to Romania. I missed being welcomed at the door by the children from the hospital, thinking of games to play and things to make for the children at the family homes. I missed their smiles and their willingness to be involved in everything. It seemed the most natural thing to return…

This time, I wanted to do a project as I knew the children and more of what to expect when I arrived. In the summer, I had worked at Dale family home; a home for older boys with mental disabilities. They had spent a lot of time in the garden which was overgrown, very dull and contained lots of chairs,
wheelchairs, pieces of wood and metal. I decided to make the garden my project.

As I only had one week it was straight to work the morning after I arrived. I spent the morning with the boys and in the afternoon, I went to buy all of the paints. All day Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I worked in the garden, painting the fence blue, green and yellow. When the carers had a spare ten minutes, they would join me and bit by bit, the garden became a much brighter, happier place to be. Read the rest of this entry »

Although it sounds like a cliché, I want to assure you its totally true; going away to Chile changed my life. In the spring of 2005 I went off with 20 volunteers, under the Oyster support network, to spend 5 months in Chilean Patagonia. There I cultivated a love for the country, the people and the language - all of which have remained a part of my life to this day.

As always, the challenges were numerous; moving in with a family, learning Spanish, and using it to teach English, integrating into our town …the list goes on. However, it soon got easier and almost exponentially, the rewards increased. Even the cold Patagonian winter is looked back on in a positive light!

I found learning Spanish was extremely worthwhile; love them or hate them, languages are pretty important and it has already opened job-doors for me. I was fairly rubbish and un-inspired at languages in school, yet being in a country, seeing the rewards and difference language integration can make, both to you and your community, provides the encouragement needed. Before long we were chattering along with the locals, whether we understood each other or not! Read the rest of this entry »

From hiking five hours on a glacier to dancing reggaeton in front of an auditorium full of camera-carrying Chilean teenagers, my Oyster experience has been unforgettable, to say the least. The people in Coyhaique are so friendly that you can’t help but run into someone and stop for a chat on the way to school.

Teaching English is like nothing I’ve ever done before, and the students are happy to help out my
Spanish at the same time. To top it off, the snow season has started, and the town looks like a winter wonderland!!

I have also had the opportunity to teach in the village of Tortel which is a fantastic place a few hours drive form Coyhaique. The school has 94 students (around 20 sleep there during the week) and about 10 teachers. The level of English is very low since this was the first year that there was a permanent,
formal English class, but the students are all excited to learn. Each grade has class once a week. Maria Paz told me that there is also a possibility for making a ‘learn-English’ radio program next year if volunteers come. Read the rest of this entry »

What can I say?….Chile was certainly the experience of a life time… 6 weeks later and over six pounds lighter, I am still looking back and rejoicing in telling, re-telling and re-retelling friends and family about my Chilean adventures!

So…what to expect from Coyhaique? It is small, and very beautiful. The people are some of the friendliest I have ever met; you can’t help but bump into someone on your travels and end up
chatting for hours on the freezing street corners…. Better still you may be invited in for a “mate” or two (pronounced mat-ay a form or herbal tea) and be made to feel part of the family!

The teaching for me was somewhat of a surreal experience, rocking up at the high school on my first day was certainly terrifying as I racked my brains to recall the Spanish I thought I had learnt! However I quickly realised that they were fantastic kids and I reveled in watching how quickly they would pick things up. I was soon immersed in a whole new world….and it seemed I was not the only one doing the
teaching, as I learnt word after word of Spanish slang and street talk! Read the rest of this entry »