One in three gap-year adventures is cut short by an accident or crime, say the organisers of a conference on the safety of young travellers.
Figures indicate a 10 per cent rise in numbers of people taking a year off to travel but increasing numbers of parents are contacting gap-year travel companies, concerned about their child’s safety.
Peter Slowe, the founder of Projects Abroad, a gap-year company, said that the first Gap Year Safety Conference, which is being held in London on June 17, had in part been called as a response to heightened parental concern and the number of gap-year tragedies.“Safety is top of parents’ priorities,” Dr Slowe said. “We have had lots more contact with parents and the consciousness about safety is higher than some years ago.”
Parents needed to strike a balance between leaving children to their own devices and mollycoddling them, he added.
The conference reflects the concerns of “helicopter parents” — those who hover above their offspring into early adulthood. Rachel Wilder has insisted that her son Harry, 19, carry a credit-card-sized tracker while he travels across Australia, Thailand and South Africa on his gap year. She can trace him to within 15ft of his location and receives a text message if he goes off limits.
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More than 250,000 young Britons take a year out before or after university but safety campaigners say that almost a third will be affected by crime, poor health, traffic accidents or other unwanted incident while overseas.
China, Argentina and countries in sub-Saharan Africa are among the most dangerous for gap-year travellers, according to Dr Slowe, but his volunteers in Mongolia and India suffer few serious problems.
Richard Oliver, head of the Year Out Group, which represents Britain’s commercial volunteer service overseas, said that parents should keep copies of their child’s passport and insurance policies.
Sebastian Tarnowski, of the British Safety Council, which is offering gap-year courses on basic health and safety, said: “Young people are naive. It’s up to the parents to check up and take precautions but parents should be tactful. It’s their children’s experience and they should be the ones that are planning it.”
Ian French, whose daughter Georgia died in a bus crash in Peru in 2007, will address the conference. He founded GapAid, a charity to promote safer travel for young people. He said: “We are not suggesting that you can avoid all risk, but there are so many issues which we don’t think people are properly prepared for because there is no national curriculum for this.”
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CASE STUDY; Craig Ferriman
Craig Ferriman, 19, had two car accidents during his gap year but they both happened before he left England. Mr Ferriman, who is now studying English at Queen Mary, University of London, took part in a journalism placement at a magazine and a newspaper in Cape Town and went into townships covering crime stories. “South Africa is a very dangerous country. . . but I was warned of all the risks by staff at Projects Abroad.”
The gap-year company runs work experience placements in developing countries and has staff in the country to assist volunteers should they get into difficulties. “They gave me a briefing and induction on the first day, including a card with emergency numbers on it.”
Mr Ferriman’s two-month trip to South Africa was his first stint of independent travel. “It’s about being culturally aware of where you are. I always kept my wits about me,” he said.