Students join wildlife charity to show true cost of gap year

A short film made by students from Collyers College is to be used by Horsham charity Care for the Wild to highlight the impact gap year students might have on wildlife across the world.
Emily Benstead and Ben Parsons in the Collyers-Care for the Wild film What A Gap Year Really Costs SUS-140228-111142001Emily Benstead and Ben Parsons in the Collyers-Care for the Wild film What A Gap Year Really Costs SUS-140228-111142001
Emily Benstead and Ben Parsons in the Collyers-Care for the Wild film What A Gap Year Really Costs SUS-140228-111142001

The students, from the Media and Drama departments, were asked by the wildlife charity to make a film showing how gap year students – and tourists in general – can often harm animals without even thinking about it when they are abroad.

The film shows two hapless students hoping to enjoy animals and wildlife on their Gap Year, but inadvertently doing everything wrong, such as heading for the Pamplona Bull Run and elephant trekking in Thailand.

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Philip Mansbridge, CEO of Care for the Wild, said: “The Collyers students have already made one film for us, so we knew the level of quality and professionalism we were going to get.

“But this time they surpassed themselves. They’ve made a short film which gets our messages across while still being funny, and perfectly pitched for gap year students. The work they’ve done will go a long way towards getting students to stop and think for a second about what they’re doing, so hopefully it’ll prevent a lot of them from contributing to animal abuse.”

Jonathan Nunns, Subject Leader for Media Studies at Collyers, said: ‘I am delighted that this second collaboration has met with success. Our students really benefit from the high professional expectations of externally commissioned work of this kind. It motivates everyone concerned to give of their very best.’

To watch the film, and for factual information on animal-related tourist attractions in every country of the world, see www.RIGHT-tourism.org.

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RIGHT-tourism stands for Responsible, Informed, Guilt-Free and Humane Tourism. Care for the Wild is a charity based in Sussex dedicated to the protection of wildlife in the UK and abroad. For more information see www.careforthewild.com.

Report and picture contributed by Care for the Wild.

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