Home > Job News > Gap Year/Temporary > Bursaries For Work Experience With The Raleigh Graduate Bursary Award < Job News and Info

There are still more than 300 bursaries available from the Raleigh Graduate Bursary Award. The award can help graduates achieve valuable work experience and have fun on a gap year at the same time. That way, you improve your chances of finding a graduate job by gaining key employability skills - and get some money towards doing it at the same time.

The Raleigh Graduate Bursary Awards aims to help graduates from less well-off families to go on the gap year of a lifetime by covering some of the costs involved for a ten week placement abroad.

Awards are available for placements starting this summer through to Spring 2011.

To qualify for an award the applicant must have graduated in 2009 or be due to graduate this year. The graduates must put £1,000 towards the trip themselves and must also pay for flights and some other essentials such as vaccinations.

In Autumn 2009, 60 of last year’s graduate crop went to India, Costa Rica, Borneo and Nicaragua with Raleigh. They worked with volunteers from every corner of the globe on projects to help in communities and in environmental issues.

Highlighting the importance of the work experience element of the trips, Tim Eklund, who gained an award for Borneo from Raleigh last year, said: “Before Raleigh I was unemployed, newly graduated and refusing to go on benefits. Raleigh has given me the opportunity to demonstrate skills like leadership, communication and teamwork in different scenarios. If I were to be asked typical interview questions I could talk all day about the experiences on Raleigh.”

And Benita Sabharwal, who went to Nicaragua and helped build a gravity feed water system for one project, said that the work experience had really improved her employability skills. She added that: “Other skills Raleigh helped with was my communication, organisation, planning and being able to work with a variety of people from different backgrounds and cultures.”

For further information about the Raleigh Graduate Bursary Award see this link.

For lots more work placement opportunities visit the internships and work experience section of the e4s website.