VAE (Vrai Alpiniste Expeditions) Kenya is an educational organisation started in 1979 by a group of teachers taking children to the French Alps, an expedition that happened annually. Since then it has taken groups to Nepal, Peru and many parts of Africa. We first went to Kenya in 1984 and have been every year since, settling there in 1994.

The concept of volunteer teachers in Kenya started partly with our interest in Kenyan education and schools, and our involvement in the development of one particular school, and partly as teachers in what our students were to do after their 'A' levels. Many went on exciting sounding projects which turned out to be little more than holidays, run by organisations more interested in money than in developing a young person.

A certain philosophy runs behind the organisation which is similar to the former Voluntary Service Overseas, which has in the past fifteen years shrunk into only wanting qualified and experienced volunteers. We deal only with schools in the poorer sector of Kenyan society, usually rural, where we believe a volunteer can have a considerable impact. To make that impact, however, requires total commitment and a good deal of hard work. This is not a ticket to travel around Africa, but a job and an opportunity for service.

It is not, of course, just local communities who gain from having a highly educated and highly motivated teacher in their schools. The volunteer will have to face up to challenges, difficulties and frustrations and a completely different way of life without the support of school or family structures. In order to cope a volunteer will be expected to lead, to find self-confidence and to find optimism, where the easy way out is to despair. They do cope, and in turn find new sides to their character which will never leave them and which will only be of use in future life.

Universities encourage "gap" years, but are increasingly looking critically at them. If you can succeed in this, you will be able to face almost anything head on. Many volunteers return to Kenya, some many times.

VAE is not a soft option, but then:

Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he believed he could only do a little.
(Edmund Burke)