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Hi everyone! My name is James Nolan; I’m from a small town called Tamworth within the UK. This is my story from the start of my Lattitude journey, to the end of my Lattitude journey. I decided to come up with the idea of writing my whole journey, because I think it’ll give all future volunteers an idea of the whole journey from the eye of some-one who has experienced it all first hand.

For me travelling and doing something different from everyone else has always fascinated me. I guess the desire for travel and learning about different cultures and way of livings is something that is built in some people. If you want to learn more about yourself, different cultures, the way in which people live differently to within your home society, different foods and also to build/ acquire new skills, then definitely look into taking a year out!

During my Sixth Form study, we were always told the importance of going to University, and I can say we didn’t get given any information about GAP Years at all! I remember coming across the term ‘GAP Year’ during my research into university, so from there I decided to research into them more. I must have gone through at least 20 different organisations, all offering various programmes at different prices. I was shocked to see quite a lot of them offering 2-4 week programmes at prices ranging over £2000-£3000, with some of them not including meals within these costs! I then found myself coming across Lattitude; the website struck me because of its professionalism and how informative it was. I think I must have spent about 1-2 hours clicking on every area of the page, reading every bit of information I could and knew by the end of this research, that a Lattitude Global Volunteering experience was for me!

I never really asked my parents whether it was okay, I just shown them Lattitude’s website and why I wanted to do this experience. I guess I’m quite lucky that they didn’t mind and were fully behind me with the decision. Once I had spoken to my family about the idea of embarking on a GAP Year with Lattitude Global Volunteering, I decide to tell my Sixth Form personal tutor, because I still wanted to go to University, so was wary about how this would all work. So for anyone wanting to take a year out, but who wants to still go to University, don’t be alarmed, you CAN do both! All it means is that you still apply like usual, but you apply for a ‘Deferred Entry’. This means, as long as you meet your entry requirements, you will have your place confirmed at your chosen University, but you will start the year of your GAP Year, unless of course you have chosen to do your GAP Year placement after University.

From all of this pre-planning stage, became my actual Lattitude experience. I applied on-line, through the lengthy application form, although there seems to be quite a few parts to the application, don’t be scared, because it really helps the Lattitude team know if the GAP Year experience’s they have to offer are really suitable for you or not and it also allows them to get to know a bit about the person that’s applying. After my application had been received, I then had to have an interview with Sarah Hak my Volunteer Co-ordinator (VC). The interview I had was by telephone (however there is face-to-face and Skype options), which lasted between 30-60 minutes, allowing Sarah to find out about myself, what I expected from my placement and Lattitude, what I had to offer and it also gave me the chance to ask Sarah any questions I had myself. I felt this was very worthwhile, because I learned so much more about the type of voluntary work I wanted to do and also about Lattitude themselves!

When I received the news to say that my application and interview went really well, I was surely ecstatic! However, this wasn’t the end of the application process yet! Next came my interview with Jo Walsh, who is the Programme Manager for Australia. It was great talking to Jo, as she helped inform me about life in Australia and also was able to give further information on the type of Teaching Assistant placements there was in Australia, either your standard school or Aboriginal school. After talking with her, we both agreed that the type of placement best suited to myself was that in an Aboriginal School, working with the Indigenous Aboriginal children within a Boarding school environment, children where English isn’t their main language, nor is education something that is highlighted within their cultures. After this interview was finished and I received an email saying that my interview was successful, I received an information pack about Aboriginal life, their culture and the teaching assistant placements within Australia, the information was a great read and I would recommend anyone to really learn about the type of work and the type of people you’ll be working with on your placement!

From here onwards came the lengthy process of saving for Australia! My parents paid for my deposit, but I said to them that I wanted to pay for the rest myself, because I wanted to really give my all into this experience! I started off with a list of fundraising ideas I could do, asking for ideas of friends and family, then I set up a Blog and a Facebook page, to keep people up-dated with what I was doing as well as providing them with information about Lattitude Global Volunteering. It was great to see the response off people who were really behind my decision, some people questioned it and you have to be prepared for it, some even said ‘why would we want to pay for you to go on holiday?’! I stayed true to myself and made everyone aware that a Lattitude Global Volunteering placement was far from Volunteering, it’s where people commit themselves to a VOLUNTARY placement for a duration decided upon each individual, where we help people from different walks of lives/ communities better themselves, not only is it voluntary but self-funded to where each of us have to pay a fee to cover the costs of the experience/ journey.

I ended up only actually doing one fundraising event, which was a sponsored run, of which I raised £200 from. Although this worried me about how I was actually going to get the rest of the money together, I didn’t let it phase me, instead it made me more ambitious to get there from hard graft and savings. I had a job from which I saved money up from monthly; however it was only 8-12 hours a week, with not very good pay! I carried on saving my money during my sixth-form studies, and then as they were coming to an end I got another job, 5 hours on a Saturday night. The savings were still slow, and I was only coming up to £1500-£2000 by the end of May/ June! Then as soon as my A-levels studies finished, I was lucky to get a full-time job, Monday-Friday, which was now my main source of finance and now I was managing 3 paid jobs and 1 voluntary job, my funds were soaring up! It was hard work and I’d find myself tired a lot, from sometimes being out the house from 8:30am and not getting back till 9:30pm! However, because I was so set on going to Australia and completing a GAP Year placement with Lattitude, I’m not stopping my jobs until the week before I depart to Australia! Some people call me crazy for working so many jobs and hours, but It’s great, it’s gave me a sense of pride and achievement, knowing that this whole experience has been so personal to me, without any real input from other people! J

It was great having the Lattitude website, in which we could talk to other volunteers who were going to the same countries as ourselves and get to know each-other. Some of us talked more than others and the group of us was filling up nicely, we all seemed to get on well which was great! I got talking to one of the volunteers (Sarah) really well and we had a laugh and joked about if we were going to be placed at the same placement. Quite a while (so it seemed) past before I got my email confirmation with my placement details and was quick to email Sarah to see if she’d received hers, but she hadn’t! Then a week later I had another email to say my placement had been changed and then a message of Sarah to say that she’d received her placement details and YES you guessed it, we had been placed at the same school! (Djarragun College) in Gordonvale, Queensland, which was a 40 minute drive approximately from Cairns! We both set off researching the school, adding all the other volunteers we were going to be placed with, so we could get to know them as we were all going to be spending a good few months together! They all seem great, and I can’t wait to meet all the other volunteers and to be at our placement! The volunteers consist of 5 German volunteers who’ve been at the placement since July time, another German volunteer who’ll be flying out in January, a volunteer from the Isle of Man and myself from England!

In November, the volunteers from the UK was invited to go to a Pre-Departure briefing in Reading, it was such a great day! I remember walking towards there and bumping into a volunteer and her mum, who were trying to find the building, so me and my dad walked with them to the briefing. We nearly got lost as when we went to the front of the building, but it seemed locked, and as we went to walk away, we noticed a sign on the back of one of the doors telling us where to go! Finally we got there! We started off with a brief introduction to Lattitude, then we done a couple of ‘Ice-breaker’s which were a laugh, to get us all talking to people, it made the atmosphere feel so much more relaxed! After we had a lunch all the volunteers were split into separate rooms, depending on which country we were volunteering in, then we were provided with information specific to the countries we were going to, which was very helpful! Our group ended up finishing early, and a big group of us stayed behind talking, getting to know each-other ect, it was as if we’d all known each-other a while!

From then to now, I’ve been saving up for spending money for when I’m in Australia, seeing my family and friends as much as I can, working and getting all my essentials together to take with me. I’ve been on countdown like no-bodies business, which must be driving people mad by now haha! I’m really excited and as of this moment in-time it’s 3 weeks 1 day and 24 minutes until I fly out to Australia (26^th January at 18:45 to be precise!).