You wouldn’t believe the impact our high school volunteers had last summer

Every year, we get professional healthcare staff to teach the high school students on our medical projects. They get taught basic medical skills like blood pressure monitoring and blood sugar checks, among others. Because of these newly acquired skills, our volunteers helped local healthcare staff screen over 7,650 people in countries like Ghana, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Bolivia, Peru, Tanzania and Belize.

Our High School Special volunteers also assisted with other medical initiatives, which included:

• Health checks for 1,130 children, elderly and disabled people in Cambodia
• Diabetes screening for over 200 people in Bolivia
• Teaching proper teeth cleaning techniques for 200 children to promote oral hygiene in Bolivia

Thanks to regular screenings, our volunteers help detect symptoms before they become severe, making sure community members can seek early treatment.

For example, Belize community member, Steve, discovered he was type II diabetic during a mobile clinic. This non-communicable disease had caused a foot infection and thanks to the knowledge of his diabetes, he was able to get the correct treatment. Weeks later, Steve’s foot was fully healed, and he was grateful for the work done by our volunteers:

This is a testimony to the work that you guys are doing. I tell everyone this. If I didn’t come here, I wouldn’t have known how to treat my foot. These kids are doing great work – Steve

Another way our volunteers make an impact is through awareness campaigns. These campaigns are key for prevention and encourage early detection and treatment. Our high school medical volunteers did a great job sharing their knowledge about causes, symptoms and treatments of common illnesses.

For example, did you know mosquitoes are the deadliest animals to humans on the planet? The diseases they spread can easily cause an epidemic if communities are unaware of them. This is why in 2018, the high school students on our medical projects ran a global mosquito-borne diseases campaign. They also destroyed mosquito breeding grounds, distributed larvicide, and tested people for malaria and dengue fever.

As part of their awareness work last summer, our volunteers:

• Inspected 126 family homes in Jamaica and Sri Lanka and eradicate mosquito breeding grounds
• Distributed dengue fever information leaflets to 500 community members in Sri Lanka
• Spoke to the residents in 99 houses in Belize, and handed out brochures to raise awareness of mosquito-borne diseases
• Removed potential mosquito breeding grounds along 5 main roads in Sri Lanka

Not did only our volunteers help – they also gained valuable medical experience before college!

I learned so many things within the clinic and during our workshop lessons. Things like how to stitch, what type of stitches to use, and how to give injections, which we did on a piece of fruit and a pig leg. - Faith L, Medicine in Peru

Our Childcare volunteers play an important role in assisting local teachers and caregivers in laying the foundation for a child’s development. They encouraged learning through play and taught basic maths and English.

Altogether, our volunteers worked with over 4,800 children around the world last summer!

Here are some examples of their work. They:

• Ran holidays schools for 150 students in Ghana and 40 students in Argentina
• Worked with 590 students at understaffed day care centres in Peru
• Ran a football club in Ghana for 160 children

Our High School Special volunteers also created lasting resources for schools and kindergartens around the world. For example, our volunteer built:

• 3 playgrounds in Ecuador and Fiji
• 2 hand washing systems for kindergartens in Cambodia
• Road access to 2 schools in Cambodia
• 2 multi-sensory gardens using fruit trees and recycled materials in Mongolia and Sri Lanka

A bright learning environment stimulates a student’s learning and encourages them to engage during lessons. Colours and shapes also help younger children with sensory development. Because of this, our volunteers painted classrooms and educational murals in schools and kindergartens. Over 2,650 students benefited from their work!

We are grateful to Projects Abroad for their support. You have made my house very beautiful and now I can sleep with my family in peace without having to worry about rain washing down my house anymore. - Daavi A., Community member in Ghana whose house was plastered and painted by volunteers

In terms of protecting our planet, our High School Special volunteers set a great example once more. They did a great job through clean-ups, biodiversity studies, awareness campaigns, reforestation initiatives and invasive species removal.

As part of their conservation work, they:

• Picked up over 1,300 kg of litter in Belize, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Kenya, Mexico and Sri Lanka
• Planted over 5,800 trees
• Collected and relocated eggs from 155 turtle nests in Mexico. These relocations contributed to the total of 24,400 hatchlings released!
• Removed 17 wire snares from a wildlife reserve in Kenya. This means our volunteers potentially saved 17 animals!

Our conservation volunteers also helped with surveys, monitoring and research work. Doing this work makes deciding on effective and long-term conservation strategies easier.

By participating in the Conservation programme, I learned a lot about Madagascar’s unique flora and fauna and gained a better understanding of the ecosystem’s fragile state. - Simone V, Conservation & Community Work in Madagascar

These are just a few of the highlights, but there is so much more. Read our High School Special Impact Report for a full breakdown of all the work you could potentially contribute to while volunteering abroad as a high school student.

Together, we have had an incredible impact all over the world. With all this in mind, what impact do you think you’ll have this summer? We are keen to see what you’re capable of!