Young People Volunteering in Poorer Countries

More and more young people from wealthy countries are spending a short time doing unpaid work, such as teaching and building houses for communities in poorer countries. What are the reasons for this? Who benefits more from this, the communities or these young people?

Annotated response

9 correction notes

Showing 9 correction notes.

The number of youngsters leaving economically stable countries for less stable ones to do free work like building houses and teaching in communities is increasing daily. to keep themselves occupied as there are fewer job opportunities in areas; I believe that rural areas benefit more from this activity than the youth.

Many youths leave their comfort zone in the cities and migrate to rural areas to work without getting paid just because they couldn’t get a job in the big companies around them. Working in these areas keeps them busy and occupied rather than waiting to get a job. In addition, youths see this as an opportunity to gain more experience in their line of work, knowledge which is required to function optimally in the cities. When I graduated from the as a , I worked for six months in a village which boosted my experience before I in Lagos.

However, even though it is working in the rural areas without getting paid benefits to the youths, I believe the people living in these communities are the biggest gainers from these acts of charity. To start with, these youths teaching in the rural schools and districts the children. They bring ideas from the cities and teach these young ones. Also, those that engage in building structures help improve the well-being of the people living in the communities and improve the image of the area as a whole. For example, a youth posted to a rural site for his country’s service decided to build a latrine toilet for the community, which solved the problem of defecating in rivers and dams.

To round it up, youths leave the prominent and wealthy cities for poorer ones to assist in like teaching and building structures to keep themselves busy and gather experience. However, I believe the community benefits more from this act of charity because the well-being of people residing in these areas is improved in the end.

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 6.5

The response has logical paragraphs and a consistent judgement that communities benefit more. However, most examples concern domestic urban-to-rural service, while the question asks about young people travelling from wealthy countries to poorer countries. This shift limits task coverage. Grammatical errors and imprecise expressions also reduce the clarity of otherwise relevant ideas.

IELTS criteria

How each score was decided

Task Response

6.0

The response gives reasons for unpaid work and consistently identifies communities as the main beneficiaries. However, most development shifts from volunteering across wealthy and poorer countries to movement between cities and rural areas within one country, so the specific international situation is only partly addressed.

Coherence and Cohesion

7.0

Paragraphing is logical, with a clear sequence from reasons to benefits and conclusion. However, the repeated contrastive use of However is sometimes weakly motivated, and the malformed opening sentence of the benefits paragraph interrupts the flow of the argument.

Lexical Resource

6.5

Vocabulary is sufficient and sometimes precise for the topic, with attempts at less common items, but there are noticeable imprecisions such as 'prominent cities', 'impact knowledge', and 'seek for job' that reduce precision.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

6.5

Simple and complex structures convey the main ideas, but errors in articles, capitalisation and clause construction reduce control. In particular, "it is working ... benefits to the youths" combines incompatible structures, and "sought for Job" uses an unnecessary preposition.