CYE-CYL and Help Me Learn Africa’s ‘Travel with A Purpose’ returns

CYE-CYL and Help Me Learn Africa have continued their collaboration ‘Travel With A Purpose’, with the event set to take place in July 2024.

After the success of last year’s project, the two local charities are collaborating once again, deciding to take on a bigger task.

Designed with the intention to combine the self-development work that drives CYE-CYL with Help Me Learn Africa for the development of underserved communities, the project will see 15 young Gibraltarians head to Ghana for four weeks.

“CYE-CYL has been supporting Help Me Learn Africa since day one, so when their team approached me about a potential collaboration, I was thrilled,” Louise Barea, Founder of Help Me Learn Africa, said.

“After the success of last year’s project, it made even more sense to take an even bigger team to Ghana, to serve the local community in an even greater way.”

CYE-CYL (pronounced as ‘Cycle’) is an acronym for Change your Energy, Change Your Life.

Founded in 2018, CYE-CYL was created with the ambition of providing training and development programmes for young people to live every day with confidence, drive, and ambition.

CYE-CYL’s mission is to inspire participants to act with purpose in everything they do, encouraging them to feel they can make a difference in the world, in
and outside of Gibraltar.

“Having pushed young people to serve the local community for many years, CYE-CYL is keen to take this one step further, by prompting young people to take purposeful action abroad, taking the same innovation and hard work that has proven so fruitful here at home and to communities around the world in need of a helping hand,” said the statement.

After seeing the work that ‘Help Me Learn Africa’ has carried out in Ghana for many years, last year saw the two charities unite to build an extremely needed educational facility in the remote village of Kewunor, Ghana.

A team of 10 participants worked tirelessly over the course of three weeks to turn around the classroom in record time, providing a learning space that can host up to 50 students.

The journey is documented on Project Ghana, which airs at 9pm on Monday’s on GBC.

“Participating in Travel with a Purpose was definitely an eyeopening experience Katie,” a volunteer from last year’s project, said.
“It made me realise a lot and made me grow. It was the most rewarding, humbling and amazing experience ever. This opportunity has taught me what is really important in life and to appreciate everything we have, even the little things.”

Navin Mayani, Chairman of CYE-CYL, added: “We believe that this experience will not only positively influence the energy of the volunteers we take, but also that of the locals we serve.
Travel with a purpose is not only a chance to volunteer abroad, but an opportunity for our participants to learn how they can change their own lives, by learning from a community so vastly different from our own.”

The programme, aimed at local 18 to 25-year-olds, will also serve as an opportunity for volunteers to immerse themselves in the local culture, by venturing to nearby villages to explore the local culture, cuisine and communities.

“Our aim is to prompt participants to see how the smallest of acts can make the biggest of differences, harvesting a sense of personal responsibility and desire to live life from a place of good-will,” the statement said.

“We hope that by encouraging the young people of Gibraltar to serve others, both locally and internationally, we can continue to foster the sense of community that makes Gibraltar such a special place.”