Students warned over 'voluntourism'

An international development charity has warned students that it may be better to travel the world rather than take part in overseas gap-year aid projects which cost thousands of pounds and do little to help developing countries.

Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) said that the burgeoning gap-year industry was increasingly catering to the needs of students rather than those of the communities they claim to support.

The charity warned that "voluntourism" was often badly planned with spurious projects springing up across the developing world which, instead of benefiting those involved, had a negative impact on young people and the communities they worked with.

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