World Challenge Expeditions

World Challenge is a for-profit UK provider of a range of overseas adventure travel programs targeted at schools. The company is over 30 years old. World Challenge is a multinational organisation with businesses in North America, Australia, Middle East, South East Asia and Europe and is part of the Travelopia group of companies.

Overseas expeditions 3 to 4 weeks

Standard expeditions on offer last 3 to 4 weeks in developing countries in over 50 destinations- targeted at students aged between 15 and 18. The programme involves 15 to 20 months of preparation, to train team members in the necessary skills that will be required during their fully immersive and intense expedition in the developing world. As well as offering support to enable them to raise money to fund the costs of the trip of a lifetime. This build-up phase includes several meetings with the team facilitiated by World Challenge. Typically the expedition programme involves four phases including acclimatisation, community engagement, challenge such as trekking and chill out. Acclimatisation is about setting up the team in leadership roles and getting them to understand the new place they find themselves in. Community engagement involves not just contributing something to a community overseas but learning about a new culture and way of life. Challenge sees the students take on a physically demanding trek from 3 to 20 days long. Chill out is about sight seeing and more recreational activities. The unique thing about the expedition programme is that students actually run the trip themselves and take on responsibility for bookings and budget management.

Community and Culture 1 to 2 weeks

A newer offering from World Challenge is the Community and Culture programme focussing on global citizenship and cultural literacy. Aside from being shorter the focus is more on community engagement and some rest and relaxation activities. Students have an opportunity to live and work in a local community as well as take a look around the destination they are in. This is appealing to more schools who like less time away from the classroom.

Incidents

In July 2017 a student at Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, died while white water rafting on a World Challenge trip to Ecuador. The company then suspended all white water rafting activity while an investigation took place.

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