World Challenge Expeditions

World Challenge is a for-profit UK provider of school expeditions. The company is over 29 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 TUI Travel Specialist and Activity Sector.

Standard expeditions on offer last 1 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 - these include; the 'Launch Meeting' where they learn about money management, fundraising, their destination, and get to know each other in team building exercises. This is followed by the 'Itinerary Planning Meeting' where the team design and plan their expedition- this allows for each expedition to be tailored to the goals of the team as the time spent in each phase is decided by the team- Would they like to focus on overcoming personal goals whilst on a longer more physically challenging trek or have a bigger impact on a local developing community during a project phase. The session ends with a parents update evening- delivered by the students.

Challengers then complete a two-day, one-night training expedition in the UK which is designed to give participants an insight to life on expedition whilst learning about the responsibilities that the team will hold on expedition and an introduction to the good decision-making skills of which are crucially important on expedition- as to gain the most from the trip teams are in many cases (and under safe supervision) 'Thrown in at the deep end'.

Most expeditions are split into 4 phases:

Each team travels with at least one Teacher (School Leader) and an Expedition Leader. Depending on the number of students an Expedition Assistant might be required to ensure the ratios of adults to minors is met. All Expedition Leaders and Assistants have to meet strict criteria on the experience and qualifications they hold. These are also set out as part of the British Standard 8848 and the Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge, both of which World Challenge hold.

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