The idea
A gap year with a job to do
Gap for Good revives a great tradition: the young volunteer teacher, living and working at Dr Graham's Homes, part of school life for a whole generation of pupils and staff. We select two Fellows a year — no more — for a six-month gap year volunteering placement in India unlike any other: living at the Homes, in roles agreed with the school and shaped around what each Fellow can genuinely offer.
This is not a holiday with a conscience bolted on. It is closer to a fellowship: you apply, you are selected, you are prepared, you serve — and you join a community that will claim you for life.
The film
Kalimpong, in under three minutes.
The school, the hillside, and what a Fellowship is for — press play.
Introducing Gap for Good · Dr Graham’s Homes, Kalimpong · 2 min 47
The school
Founded 1900. Still extraordinary.
On 24 September 1900, a Scottish missionary named Dr John Anderson Graham opened a home in Kalimpong for six children who had nowhere else to go. From that single rented cottage grew one of the most remarkable school communities in Asia: hundreds of acres on a Himalayan hillside, a family of cottages with names like Assam, Calcutta and Willingdon, a farm, a chapel, classrooms, pitches and choirs — and 125 years of turning out confident, capable young people, from prime ministers to film-makers.
Dr Graham's Homes doesn't need rescuing. It needs what it has always run on: people who turn up, roll their sleeves up, and stay.
Pupils at the Homes
The place
Wake up at 4,000 feet
Kalimpong sits on a Himalayan ridge in West Bengal, above the Teesta River and below Kanchenjunga — at 8,586 metres, the third-highest mountain on Earth, close enough to feel like a neighbour. Prayer flags and church bells. A twice-weekly market that has traded since the mule-train days on the old route to Tibet. Momos, monasteries, flower nurseries, five languages before breakfast.
For six months, this is not your holiday destination. It's your home address.
The town beneath Kanchenjunga
Where we are
One ridge. Well connected.
Dr Graham’s Homes sits on the slopes of Deolo Hill above Kalimpong — roughly three hours by road from Bagdogra Airport near Siliguri, two hours from Darjeeling across the Teesta valley, and a day’s clear view from Kanchenjunga itself.
Sketch map · not to survey scale
Where in the world — the Homes, marked in the eastern Himalaya
Your six months
Work hard – play hard isn't our slogan.
It's the timetable.
Work hard
Term time, every day
- Support lessons and run English conversation
- Coach sport most afternoons
- Help staff deliver expeditions and award activities
- Start the club only you could start — film, music, code
- Be the older brother or sister of a cottage full of children who will demand your best
Play hard
The Himalayas, on the doorstep
- Football at altitude
- Sunrise from Deolo Hill
- Momos in the bazaar on a Saturday
- Expedition weekends in the foothills
- Festivals you'll never forget — and friendships that outlast the flight home
What it does for you
Real responsibility, taken early, in a culture not your own, 7,000 kilometres from everything familiar — there is no faster way to find out what you're capable of. You'll come home with evidence of leadership, initiative and resilience that universities and employers actually believe, a second community on the other side of the world, and a standing invitation to return.
Life at the Homes
A place you can picture.
1 / 11
What you leave behind
Not a gesture. Succession.
Gap for Good is built so that your placement itself supports the Homes. After the costs of running a safe, properly supported programme, the balance of your £3,750 programme contribution goes to Dr Graham's Homes — and the fundraising you lead around your placement is linked to the Cottage you're attached to. Live alongside Willingdon, and Willingdon benefits: its restoration, its upkeep, its pupils' activities.
Two Fellows, every year, handing on to the next two.
Who we're looking for
We're not looking for hundreds of volunteers. We're looking for two.
Curious·Resilient·Positive·Independent·Kind·Resourceful·Energetic·Ready to work hard and play hard
Not the finished article. Not straight-A certainties. We select for character — people who can live away from home, laugh at a power cut, and give six months of full-hearted effort to a community that will give them far more back.
If you're hoping for a beach with wifi, this isn't it. If you just felt your pulse pick up — keep reading.
For parents
Serious, structured — and honest about both
Sending an 18-year-old to the Himalayas for six months is a big decision — for them and for you. So we hold ourselves to a simple standard: specific answers to hard questions, and honest labels on anything not yet in place. Selection, preparation, supervision at the school, insurance, communication, emergencies — set out in plain English, alongside the questions we think you should ask us (and any gap-year provider).
"I know what six months at the Homes can do for a young person — it happened to me in 1993."
Angus Norriss · Founder — GAP Teacher, Dr Graham's Homes, 1993
£3,750The whole story, upfront
The money
Here's what it is — and isn't.
Your programme contribution covers your accommodation and meals at the Homes for six months, and the selection, preparation and support that make the placement safe and worthwhile. It does not include flights, visa or insurance — and we will never pretend that every pound reaches Kalimpong, because running a proper programme costs money.
What we will do is publish the split, every year, pound by pound. After programme costs, the balance goes to Dr Graham's Homes. That is the social-enterprise deal: we trade so the school benefits — surpluses serve the Homes, never shareholders.
How to get one of the two places
The journey to Kalimpong
Discover
Explore the programme, the school and the role. Order the guide; talk to us.
Register
Two minutes, no commitment — and you're first to know when applications open.
Apply & interview
A written application about what you'd bring, then a conversation that goes deeper.
Match, prepare, go
We shape your role with Dr Graham's Homes, train and prepare you — then Kalimpong.
Start your application
Tell us who you are and what you’d bring, attach your CV, and it comes straight to us at hello@gapforgood.org. Parents and schools are welcome to write too.