Community Volunteering

We deliberately don't refer to our healthcare placements as medical or nursing 'volunteering' to avoid confusing the aim of student learning with the kind of service that requires years of clinical training to provide in a hospital environment. However, a lot of students who join us also want to make a real contribution and help others while away - and that's what our community volunteer placements are all about.

We have a range of volunteer opportunities in all of our destinations, most of which are based around care work with children. We work with orphanages, care homes and schools for the handicapped, all of which operate with limited resources and really value an extra pair of hands.

You don't need specialist skills to get involved, just time, energy and genuine motivation - but if you do have a particular talent for art, music, sport or anything else it can probably be put to good use!

Volunteer placements are very flexible and can be combined with any of our healthcare placements: Just choose how many weeks you want to spend in the hospital and how many weeks volunteering. You can stay in the Gap Medics house for the duration of both placements and still have access to all of our support services.

If you have limited time and want as much hospital experience as possible, but also like the idea of volunteering, we can usually arrange for you to help out at an orphanage or one of the other projects during free afternoons or at weekends.