Background

PoD was set up in 2001 by Mike Beecham, Alex Tarrant and Rachel Smith to provide a link between small charities and other organisations in less developed countries and people in the UK wishing to do something worthwhile abroad.

Our lives (Mike, Alex and Rach) have been shaped by the many different places we have travelled to and the people we have met and worked with around the world. We are passionate about helping others to share these experiences.

What we do

PoD provides the opportunity for people to volunteer and make a difference overseas, while experiencing incredible parts of the world that are rich in culture, variety and natural beauty. We also arrange placements and courses for people wanting to develop their skills in amazing locations.

We aim to provide a framework for development and education through placements in less economically developed countries. Our placements are for people from all walks of life from the UK and other more economically developed countries. All of our placements by their nature are educational and the majority are for volunteers working in schools, care homes, disadvantaged communities, conservation and animal care.

We currently offer gap year, career break, working holiday and volunteer projects in Belize, Cambodia, Malawi, Nepal, Peru, Tanzania and Thailand. We also organise school expeditions.

We are a small non-profit organisation that focuses on quality and safety rather than quantity.

Our values

• Personal approach
• Genuine 2 way benefit - to volunteers and local communities
• Challenging, fun and safe experiences
• Ethically and environmentally conscious
• Thorough knowledge and assessment of locations and projects
• Support for volunteers
• Non-profit – we operate on a non-profit basis and try to keep costs as low as possible for volunteers
• Active support for the charities, organisations and projects we work with.

Our philosophy is that we should show love, care and assistance to those who have less and by so doing we will learn more about ourselves and the world. The more we learn about our world and the cultures and ecosystems within it the more we will care for it and the people in it.

How we choose the projects we work with

Although we are approached every week by organisations looking for volunteers, we only take on a few new projects each year. Most come from personal relationships that we have developed while travelling and living overseas and we select and vet our projects very carefully. We visit all projects personally and do not send volunteers to do anything we wouldn’t want to do / haven’t done ourselves.

We only work with genuine projects that have a long-term commitment to the communities and environments they are based in. The projects exist regardless of volunteers but can only achieve as much as they do with the much needed support they get from volunteers. Volunteers never replace or take local jobs and will usually be working alongside local staff and people.

We get actively involved in all our projects on an ongoing basis, supporting them through provision of volunteers, advice, assistance and financial donations.

The benefits

We believe that for any successful volunteer experience there must be a clear two way benefit. Benefit to the individual who is giving their time and money, and benefit to the project or organisation they are working with. To illustrate this we feel the best way is to let you hear directly from the volunteers and organisations we work with:

• What volunteers say about PoD and the experience of volunteering - please click here
• What the overseas organisations and projects say about having volunteers - please click here

Where the money goes

We charge a fee to volunteers for all our placements in order to cover the overseas costs of volunteering and the costs of running our organisation in the UK. PoD’s only source of funding is volunteer fees and without charging a fee we would not be able to exist. Fee levels are set to match costs (on a non-profit basis) and any surplus monies are distributed to the overseas organisations and charities we work with. Please click here for more details.

Health & Safety

PoD takes the health and safety of our volunteers, our staff and local people seriously. We have a staged approach to managing the risks and health and safety implications that may be encountered in our locations and placements. Please click here to see our health and safety statement.

Responsible Travel

The majority of our placements are in the developing world and often the people and the environment are vulnerable and sensitive. Our care for these places is the driving force behind our arranging placements for volunteers. For this reason we are extremely concerned to ensure that our impact is always positive and never damaging. Please click here to see our responsible travel policy.

Memberships and professional associations

As a highly professional organisation we opt to join groups and organisations where we will be vetted and benchmarked against other volunteer organisations and the wider travel industry.

• We are a full member of the Year Out Group, meeting the Year out Group Code of Practice - please click here to see the Code.
• We have been approved by Responsible Travel as an ethically responsible company.
• We are a partner of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Know Before You Go campaign.

Financial security and insurance

In order to protect monies that volunteers pay to us, we have an insurance policy complying with all relevant UK and EU travel regulations (see below for details). PoD has public liability insurance cover of £2 million and also chooses to take out specialist crisis management insurance.

Personal Overseas Development Limited is registered in England & Wales Company Number 4458404. VAT Number 850751723.

In compliance with the UK Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992 and the Civil Aviation (Air Travel Organiser's Licensing) Regulations 1995 an insurance policy has been arranged with Travel & General Insurance Company plc to protect customers' prepayments paid in respect of:

• non-flight inclusive packages commencing and returning to the UK
• the ground handling aspects of packages where the customer is responsible for arranging travel to the destination offered on this website (subject to the terms of the insurance policy), for:
• a refund of such prepayments if customers have not yet travelled
• making arrangements to enable the holiday to continue if customers have already travelled in the unlikely event of our financial failure.