About Us
At African Adventures, we’re on a mission to change lives through volunteering.
We’re a unique travel company, partnered with over 20 schools in developing areas of Ghana, Kenya and Zanzibar, and organise life-changing trips for people who want to help bring our work to life.
We pride ourselves on our ethical, sustainable volunteering model that puts our partner schools at the heart of everything we do. They tell us what help they want, and we recruit volunteers from the UK and beyond to make it happen. Whether it’s building a new classroom or installing new sanitation facilities, we put their needs first.
We’re proudly a small company that cares about the work we do.
our Partner Schools
Our Mission
To deliver outstanding volunteer experiences that benefit both our partner schools and our volunteers.
Our Vision
To use the power of ethical and responsible volunteering to change lives in the UK and Africa.
Our Values
Working in partnership; respecting all people and the environment; and promoting global awareness.
a personal story, scaled
I first travelled to Kenya in 2007, where I volunteered at a project school called The Walk Centre.
The volunteer-founded school provided a free education and lunchtime meal for children living in slum areas on and around the nearby dumpsite. Without initiatives such as The Walk Centre, it is unlikely that these children would have attended school at all, due to the costs of items such as uniforms and textbooks that come with attending a government school. During my time in Kenya, I visited similar volunteer-led projects in the same town, and met some inspirational leaders from the local community in the process.
I was only in Kenya for six weeks, but I knew I would be back.
My experience at The Walk Centre, and in Kenya, helped me realise that I wanted to spend my professional life supporting similar initiatives, whilst offering other people from the UK the same life-changing opportunity that I had. Two years later, African Adventures was born, and in 2019 we were proud to celebrate our 10th anniversary.
Today, the company supports more than 22,000 children across our host destinations of Ghana, Kenya and Zanzibar, and over 6,000 volunteers have travelled with us.
You can help us make a lasting and tangible difference at our partner schools, and in the disadvantaged communities where we work. There is a lot more to achieve, and I’m delighted that you’re considering embarking on your own life-changing journey with us.
We promise it will be worth it…
– Dan Mew, Director and Founder of African Adventures
meet our team
We always:
- Hire local staff to run our programmes
- Use locally owned accommodation and transport
- Source food locally to help small traders
- Pay our staff fairly
- Invest in our staff by providing quality training and development opportunities
- Ensure our carbon offsetting schemes benefit local communities
- Support female-led enterprises during our trips
Our diverse team of staff has years of experience travelling, working, volunteering and living in Africa, and each of us has a real passion for what we do.
There are no ivory towers at African Adventures, and no British staff based in-country. Our volunteer programmes are always run by local staff who were born and raised in the country you’ll visit.
Why is this so important? Well, it means you’ll benefit from local knowledge when you travel, it’ll keep your experience authentic, and it means our operation directly benefits the communities we work in.
