What is your favorite travel memory?
When I was in East Timor with a group of young Australians one of the boys with whom we were travelling had a horrendous mullet haircut (result of a school play where his character needed this styling).
We all teased him about it for the first few days of the trip until one night when we were staying in a remote mountain town in the district of Maliana and, having had enough of our humiliation, he resorted to befriending a local boy who everyone recommended as the best hairdresser in the town. It was about 9pm at night and, having no electricity, we lent this boy a head torch and he got to work “fixing” our friend’s hair.
Ultimately, the collective recommendation of this boy as a star hair stylist came only from the fact that he was one of very few people in the village to have scissors and also because, as a child, he used to cut the hair of the village goats for fun. As it turned out, our friend’s haircut could, and did, get much worse and we found the whole situation so entertaining that we invited the local boy to dinner and became great friends with him.
If you could go on any program that your company offers, which one would you choose and why?
Honestly I would go absolutely anywhere! If I had to choose (again), however, I'd pick the teaching program in Laos. I think that the unique experience of working with Buddhist Novice Monks would be an incredible cultural experience and a true opportunity to grow oneself as a person and meet people who's life experience is so vastly different from my own!
I am also very passionate about education and love teaching - I find my experiences of teaching (professional tutoring and volunteer teaching) to be extremely rewarding and to forge deep connections between students and teachers.
What makes your company unique? When were you especially proud of your team?
I'm proud of our commitment to forging local partnerships in the various locations where we work. We work to develop projects that respond to the real issues of an area rather than developing programs that simply offer experiences for international volunteers whilst neglecting the local needs of communities.
GVI focuses passionately on creating sustainable, tangible and long-term developments in the communities we work in.
This was a major factor in me joining GVI, both as a volunteer, and a staff member.
What do you believe to be the biggest factor in being a successful company?
Teamwork, openness and belief in what you're working towards. I think that if staff members can trust one another and feel comfortable communicating and growing together then a workplace is far stronger and more motivated as a collective.
I also firmly believe that people need to be motivated by something greater than money and an honest belief in the work that one's company does, as well as how this aligns with personal values and morals, is integral in creating hardworking staff and thus a successful company.