Taking a year out before or after university or college to travel is a popular choice for young people. Christian Aid's gap year is different from many others on offer, and we think it's really special!

Fame calls!
I got up ridiculously early because a local radio station wanted to interview me about my decision to walk 1,000 miles across the the UK! Christian Aid's Cut the Carbon march starts in July and there will be several big rallies along the way when we will be joined by lots of fellow campaigners. It should be brilliant! I'm really looking forward to being part of something so big that will challenge people to think about how wasting energy in this country is already affecting the world’s poorest people.

Goat for it!
Helping young people to make a difference is what the gap year is really all about, so my next stop was a local primary school where pupils have run various fundraising activities to raise £260 – enough for a herd of goats in Bolivia and lots more besides! I gave a short talk in their assembly about how a herd of goats can help people in Bolivia get an education, provide food for their family and even help build relations within communities!

Who wants to be a millionaire?
After quickly checking my emails back at the office and gathering some resources, I went out to meet a lunchtime youth alpha group.

The theme of the session was poverty, so I started by giving the group a quiz about poverty in the style of ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’. Quite a few of the students were surprised by some of the answers.

I then split the group into two teams and challenged them to build the biggest towers they could. One of the teams represented a rich country and had lots of materials, but the other team represented a developing country so it only had a newspaper to use. Inevitably the rich country won. It did all serve a point though, and I was able to show the group the inequality poverty produces. It encouraged them to start discussing how they can help make poverty history! 

Pin the tale on Tajikistan!
After spending some time at home to cook dinner and relax, I went on to my last event of the day – a local youth group. The theme was Tajikistan and we played lots of games during the session. These included pin the tail on Tajikistan (guaranteed to result in hilarity) and the Tajik version of pass the parcel where each layer reveals a fact or photo relating to Tajik culture. These prompted questions and the opportunity to talk about Christian Aid’s work in Tajikistan.

A gap life?
I'd visited Tajikistan in November as part of my gap year, so this is a subject that I am especially passionate about. The group was really responsive to the stories I told them about people I met and the way money raised here was making a huge difference over there. And while we shared a meal together they were all thinking of how they could get involved and make a difference. Helping people see that if we work together we can make poverty history is what my job is all about and why I love it so much – I just wish my gap year could become a gap life!