Press Release

BAA Gatwick has secured a £79,000 grant from BAA Communities Trust in support of its first ever global volunteering programme. Global Xchange is a six month programme which gives young people from different countries and backgrounds the opportunity to work together as volunteers, both in the UK and overseas.

From September this year, nine volunteers aged 18-25 from across India will buddy up with nine UK volunteers to work on community based projects in the Horley and Crawley area for three months. The volunteers will be hosted by families living close to the airport for the duration of their stay, giving them a great opportunity to experience a different culture and community.

The volunteers will be encouraged to shape their time spent in the community by choosing projects which would benefit the most from intensive team volunteering and will work on them for three and a half days a week. The remaining time will be spent furthering their knowledge and understanding of global issues such as environmental awareness and poverty through weekly education days led by project supervisors Ceris Jones and Meenal Sardar.

The group will then travel to Rajasthan, North east India, in December to work on community projects in the area for a further three months, giving the UK volunteers an opportunity to share their skills and to work and be part of a different community group to their own.

BAA is embarking on a year of supporting community volunteering through a sponsorship partnership with GlobalXchange, a collaboration of three organisations: VSO, CSV and The British Council. This partnership has unlocked match funding through the Government’s new youth volunteering charity; v, which aims to inspire a million more young people to volunteer in the community in 2006. v was launched in May 2006 to champion youth volunteering in England , by implementing the recommendations of the Russell Commission.

Mike Toms, BAA Communities Trust chairman said:

“Our partnership with v enables us to unlock extra money and create new ways for more young volunteers to help their communities- and at the same time develop valuable skills for themselves. Global Xchange is the perfect programme to achieve this aim, with air travel creating a vital bridge between cultures."

Ceris Jones, Global Xchange Project Supervisor said: “ We are really excited about coming to Crawley and Horley, where there is a real diverse range of community projects and issues going on for the volunteers to get involved in. I’m sure they will learn an enormous amount and make some real positive contributions to the community, as well as finding life-long friends here”.

Media enquiries

Caroline Nicholls, BAA Communities Trust Tel: 07836 342 495 www.baa.com/communitiestrust  (Link to internal ‘BAA Communities Trust’ site) Abigail Fulbrook, VSO / Global Xchange Tel: 020 8780 7292 Abigail.fulbrook@vso.org.uk www.globalxchange.org.uk (Link to URL: http://www.globalxchange.org.uk ) Ceris Jones, VSO / Global Xchange Tel: 07989 982 753 Ceris.jones@vso.org.uk

Notes to Editors:

• The GlobalXchange programme is designed to encourage young people to volunteer and be active in communities both in the UK and overseas.

• BAA Communities Trust has committed £150,000 to Global Xchange to run projects in Gatwick and Heathrow this year and early next year broadening the reach to Stansted and Southampton.

• The Russell Commission was established in May 2004 by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, to develop a new national framework for youth action and engagement. The Commission was headed by Ian Russell, and aimed to deliver a step change in the diversity, quality and quantity of volunteering opportunities available to young people aged 16to 25 in the UK.