Skills gained on expedition

A Raleigh expedition will help you to develop soft skills that will be extremely useful throughout your personal and working life. When applying for further education, training or employment you'll be asked about your skills and competencies. Academic and hard skills are extremely important but what will set you apart are your transferable skills.

Leadership

On expedition, we run a day leader system to help everyone develop their leadership skills. Each volunteer will get the chance to be the day leader and when it is your turn it is your responsibility to delegate all the tasks and to manage group decisions. Your project managers and team will give you feedback on your leadership skills at the end of the day, helping you understand your strengths and weaknesses. You will have the opportunity to improve your leadership skills throughout the expedition.

Teamworking

On each project phase you'll be working in a diverse group who all have different motivations, work ethics, attitudes, cultures and life experiences. You will need to listen to each other, understand each others' strengths and weaknesses, allocate roles, overcome conflict and motivate one another to achieve the project goals.

Communication 

You will be living and working with local communities whether in Borneo, Costa Rica & Nicaragua or India in a group with participants from all around the world. Your communication skills will be tested whilst communicating with your project groups and you may also have the opportunity to do some basic teaching English at local schools or community centres.

Cultural awareness

Raleigh International works with some of the poorest communities in Borneo, Costa Rica & Nicaragua and India. Volunteering on sustainable projects offers a unique cultural exchange which is rare to achieve whilst travelling independently. You'll be either living in homestays or in community centres within the villages so will be able to integrate into the life of the community, sharing customs, activities and stories. In your project groups you'll also be mixing with young people from the host country and other international students which will give you further opportunities for developing your global awareness.

Richard Reed, co-founder of Innocent Drinks talks about the benefits of a Raleigh expedition

Mental resilience

There will be times when your physical and mental strength will be tested to the limit. Equipment may not turn up in time, bad weather may stop work for days or there may be conflicts in the group that you need to resolve. Because you will be working on real projects in an intense environment, you'll learn a lot about how you solve such problems, how you cope under pressure and how to adapt to different situations and people. Facing challenges whilst on expedition will help you for years to come in your personal and work life, as you will look back to an extremely tough day on the adventure phase, and realise your own abilities.

'I can remember one day trekking, in the pouring rain and we'd gone two hours the wrong way down a muddy, slippery slope... However, as a group, we all decided we could do it, we put a smile on our faces (or at least tried) and trekked through thick jungle and then out into one of the most spectacular views I've ever seen.'
Jenny Reynolds Costa Rica & Nicaragua expedition

Confidence and self-awareness

Making new friends, participating in new activities and achieving your goals on your project phases will greatly improve your self confidence. You'll be with each other 24 hours, 7 days of the week on expedition so it's an intense environment where you'll learn so much about yourself as a person. You'll learn what your boundaries are, how you cope under pressure, how to solve problems, how to live without home comforts, how to adapt to different cultures and where your strengths and weaknesses lie.