Ended by Covid

*EDITED

This was a great program when it was still running. It was run by a team of both local and international staff who had a wealth of experience in education and community development, and the training that volunteers received was of an exceptionally high standard considering most had no prior teaching experience and some only stayed for two weeks. It was no coincidence that the Laos programme was consistently rated the highest of all GVI's programmes.

However, GVI is a for-profit company and their primary interest is keeping shareholders satisfied. Sustainable and impactful programmes clearly do not fit with this ethos meaning that, as soon as Covid hit in March 2020, the programme was instantly closed with all staff being effectively laid-off, including local staff whose families depended on their salaries (not every country in the world could provide furlough schemes or government support!). As for the programme's beneficiaries and the international staff team, there was of course no support offered whatsoever. We were left to dismantle our classrooms and offices and put all equipment into storage in the hope that we may be able to resume as pandemic restrictions eased. That never happened.

GVI is the perfect choice if you want to spend thousands on a superficial voluntourism programme, and if you're not particularly bothered about where your money actually ends up. But I personally think it's worth doing a bit more research to find smaller organisations who put their communities first.