While taking a ‘gap year’ is a concept more common amongst school leavers and ‘twenty-somethings’ experiencing an existential crisis, taking 12 months off to travel the globe isn’t just a Gen Y rite of passage. As Peter and Denise Barnett discovered, the world is your oyster no matter how old you are.
The journey
After watching an Australian Story segment called ‘Africa Calling’, Peter learnt about the establishment of the ‘School of St Jude’ in Arusha, Tanzania by Australian, Gemma Sisia.
After the program finished, he checked out the School of St Jude website where he found a role available for a Purchasing Coordinator.
“We decided there and then to give it a shot,” Peter says, “and never had a second thought about whether it was the right decision or not.”
“Before we made the decision to volunteer, we had already decided that climbing the corporate ladder was not for us,” says Peter. “Our daughters were all working, so we had nothing to stop us from taking a leap of faith.”
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