WAVA

WAVA, formerly "Work & Volunteer Abroad", has been operating since 2006 and provides a wide range of programmes allowing people of all backgrounds and ages the opportunity to participate in community and conservation volunteering projects around the world as well as internships and paid work placements. We currently offer around 80 programmes in more than 20 countries, and send about 500 travellers abroad every year, primarily from the UK, USA, Australia and Northern Europe. Some of our most popular internship and work programmes are in Spain, Norway, France and Australia. Our most popular conservation projects are in Ecuador, Galápagos Islands, South Africa, Thailand, Vietnam and New Zealand, and we also send many volunteers to community projects in Chile, Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Swaziland, India and Nepal.

Travel experiences we offer

Our internship and work placements are in a very broad range of sectors, from agriculture to journalism to medical specialisms. Our conservation projects involve animals such as elephants, lions, gibbons, reptiles and birds, and our community projects work with disadvantaged children and women in remote or impoverished communities.

Sustainability and value of our projects

Our programmes are always designed to provide a two-way benefit, shared between the traveller and the host. We expect our travellers to actively engage with their hosts in order to learn, grow and develop as individuals, and our hosts will gain from the traveller's efforts to contribute to the community, the environment or the workplace.

At WAVA we work with hand-picked partners whose programmes and projects we get to know personally and visit regularly. The long-term sustainability of WAVA depends on firm, robust relationships with our partners who care and work hard towards their own sustainability, and the ongoing viability of their organisations.

Our partners run real-world, on-the-ground projects or businesses. These organisations have the characteristics our demanding travellers expect and at WAVA we aim to maintain the highest standards of safety, integrity and value.

At WAVA we strongly support the aims and mission of Year Out Group, adhering to its code of conduct, and focusing on the values and benefits of taking time abroad to engage in meaningful, rewarding travel.

WAVA social media activity

WAVA is also proud to be running a community website where aspiring travellers can share their plans and communicate directly with ex-WAVA travellers, and, uniquely, can obtain rewards for their activity in the form of "WAVApoints" which they can redeem against a WAVA booking. Please visit and join our growing vibrant community on www.wavaengage.com. We also have a huge publicly-accessible online photolibrary of all the photos we've taken on our project visits, which we use for our communications materials and website, available on http://flickr.com/seemoredomore.

To learn more about WAVA or to book a programme, please visit www.workandvolunteer.com.  You can also visit their social media website www.wavaengage.com