World Challenge Expedition

...be wrong to think of World Challenge as a travel agent to be honest it is more than that, it is not the place that the average holiday maker would go to book a holiday as it pitches its business at educational institutions, in specialises in arranging expeditions to lesser developed or developing countries for groups of students hence its customers are primarily schools and other educational institutions and it is established in the UK, Australia ...
...destination Venezuela.

World Challenge though is not about a luxury holiday, the programme is best described as a leadership programme for young people as they take an active role throughout what is effectively a two year programme at my school. World Challenge for us is offered as the pinnacle activity in our outdoor education programme which starts with camping trips in year 7 and progresses through Duke of Edinburgh Awards and CCF ... more

It would be wrong to think of World Challenge as a travel agent to be honest it is more than that, it is not the place that the average holiday maker would go to book a holiday as it pitches its business at educational institutions, in specialises in arranging expeditions to lesser developed or developing countries for groups of students hence its customers are primarily schools and other educational institutions and it is established in the UK, Australia and Hong Kong.

It offers a range of expeditions of varying lengths and to a whole host of destinations, these expeditions can be anything from a week up to five weeks in length and primarily are aimed at 16-18 year olds however there are programmes for those in years nine and ten where the destinations are less exotic and for one to two weeks in duration, kayaking in Croatia or hiking in Morocco or Iceland are two such examples, for the longer expeditions that are many locations stretching from Mongolia and Vietnam in the east, including Botswana and Kenya in Africa while most South and Central American countries are covered such as Peru, Honduras and my destination Venezuela.

World Challenge though is not about a luxury holiday, the programme is best described as a leadership programme for young people as they take an active role throughout what is effectively a two year programme at my school. World Challenge for us is offered as the pinnacle activity in our outdoor education programme which starts with camping trips in year 7 and progresses through Duke of Edinburgh Awards and CCF activities until in year 10 and 11 students are offered the chance to sign up to a programme which lasts two years.

One of the reasons the programme lasts for two years is that students are expected to raise the money to fund the trip themselves, sure some kids are probably given the money by parents but the idea is that they raise the money themselves either by taking jobs, getting money instead of Christmas and birthday presents or doing fund raising activities individually or as part of the group. World Challenge provides support through a money management system providing the students with access to advice both by phone and a website. This is a big part of the whole process, for example students who went to Venezuela needed to raise £3,600 to give to World Challenge, this money does not include visas, vaccinations and also any rest and relaxation activities that they plan to do on the trip and in addition to this they will need to provide all of their own kit except for tents and certain group kit like cooking stoves which are provided by World Challenge.

Now this sounds expensive however all flights and in country costs are then covered provided the teams stick to the set budget, for our school each team numbered sixteen students and they were accompanied by two teachers and one World Challenge leader, our leader was an Australian lad who is a permanent employee of World Challenge based in Melbourne and he was brilliant, very experienced although Venezuela was new to him, he struck an excellent balance between making sure the trip was safe and allowing the students to make decisions and most importantly make mistakes.

The training before the expedition is excellent, teachers attend a one day briefing as well as having to obtain a first aid qualification, mine was in remote rescue skills and was very reassuring in the detail and skills I was taught. In addition the whole team spends three days hiking and camping in Buxton with an instructor, we went in April and it was still the coldest place I have ever been and the coldest night ever with a thin crust of snow on my tent and -7 degrees it was a long night of fitful sleep. Buxton was an excellent learning and team building event though and a place to test out any new kit.

So to the expedition itself, all of the destinations are remote areas of the world which present challenging environments. The expedition is divided into four main stages and each of these the students get to influence in the planning stages, then World Challenge construct an itinerary that the students should follow however this is where the whole thing starts to get interesting and the real leadership aspect kicks in. Any teachers out there reading this who have organised a trip with probably be complete and utter control freaks, I know I am, every minute of every day is organised and we have endless meetings while on a trip to keep everything together. Well a World Challenge trip is very different, on the first day in England before setting off to the airport the students are given all of the money for the trip, in all we were given close to $15,000 and a budget which we had to stick to.

After that along with the itinerary the students run the trip, they are in charge and they make all of the decisions. Each day they appoint a leader and deputy and they assign tasks, they appoint accountants and other roles such as catering and transport managers. They have key dates they must be in certain locations but there is always flexibility, in some locations guides are pre-booked as is some transport but the rest of the time it is down to them and they have to negotiate and plan as well as manage a budget as there is no credit cards or parents to go running to for a handout. All the time they are having to cope with language barriers and a very different culture.

As I mentioned earlier there are four key phases, an acclimatisation phase which is usually a hike where they get used to the local conditions, ours was four days of really tough mountainous and jungle terrain which included a night in the jungle under canvas and ended with a superb day and two nights on a beach. Then you have the main trek phase, for us we were hiking in the Andes which included a summit at 4,300m and dealing with the challenges that altitude brings. You also have a rest and relaxation phase, in our case this was a far from restful trip to Angel Falls and then finally there is a project phase where you undertake some work to benefit the local community, for us this involved a six hour boat ride up river to work with a tribe in the Amazon, mostly doing building work on a school and a landing area at the rivers edge, this is probably the most rewarding phase as we lived with the community where up until three years ago they had never seen a white face.

I was incredibly impressed with the whole World Challenge operation. Safety is key for them and some of the money the student has to raise goes towards providing a truly comprehensive operations centre that manages your safety while in country. All of the in country agents we worked with were excellent and the guides were knowledgeable and understood the World Challenge ethos about student leadership. Each team was equipped with a satellite phone and GPS distress beacon in case of emergencies and the operations centre was linked to RAF stations in the UK. I felt totally safe and thankfully we only had a couple of minor issues on our trip that we could deal with ourselves but the support was much appreciated.

I would certainly recommend World Challenge, all of the students came back more confident and better equipped to deal with life outside of school, parents are still commenting about the changes they have seen in their offspring, clichés like “went away a boy came back a man” have been used and the whole experience was both the hardest and most enjoyable things I have done in teaching. I learnt many things but I will leave you with two of the more amusing things

Firstly I should never grow a beard; I look like a tabby cat, bits of grey, brown and most worryingly ginger sprouted on my face. Secondly I learnt that being claustrophobic and having a fear of nets (it is a diving thing) means that I’m not good sleeping in a hammock with a mosquito net over it.

Thanks for reading and rating my review.
 

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