Agape Volunteers founder, Guillaume Lefevre, first travels to Kenya to volunteer with a large organisation who specialise in teaching and orphanage work. While there, Guillaume meets Izzo Mwangi (who will later become the Kenya coordinator for Agape) and many other people who support humanitarian work in the Dagoretti area of Nairobi. While Guillaume hugely enjoyed his time in Kenya, he and Izzo felt that there were a number of things which could be improved about the volunteering model; specifically ensuring that as much volunteer money as possible reaches projects on the ground, and a more professional approach to project planning and administration. After many late night meetings, the concept of Agape Volunteers in born.

Following an 18 month long process of negotiating with projects and host families in Kenya, and getting up to speed with the legal and financial requirements of operating a charity, Agape Volunteers with officially founded in May 2011. The original board of Trustees comprised of several close friends and family of founder Guillaume Lefevre, who also took the Chairman position. Agape started by offering teaching, orphanage and medical programmes in Kenya and placed only a handful of volunteers in its first few months of operation.

Very soon after Agape begun to attract its first volunteers, the team realised that in order to be a major player in the volunteering market, they would need to offer a wider range of destinations.

A little over a year after full registration as a charity, and after a rapid increase in volunteer applications (driven by a new website and marketing campaign provided by Inspira Digital), Agape placed it's 100th volunteer. There will still numerous challenges to come and further expansions in the pipeline; however, Agape had successfully got itself off the ground and was ready to play in the international volunteering market.

The 2007 presidential election in Kenya was one of the country's darkest chapters, with a disputed result leading to weeks of violence which has thankfully never been repeated. As a direct result of this violence many Kenyans were unable to return to their homes and communities. In response to this, the Kenyan Government and United Nations (UN) set-up the IDP camps to house these internal refugees. Unfortunately, little thought was given to the long term sustainability of this plan, and refugees were only provided with plastic tents and no access to food or water. Since 2012 Agape Volunteers with other partner organisations has taken responsibility for one of the larger camps in Mahi Mahu, including providing weekly food deliveries, constructing a fresh water supply and constructing numerous building including houses and schools. IDP continues to be one of Agape's primary targets for funding and volunteers to this day.

As the organisation grew, the team realised that many volunteers were spending additional money on trips such as safaris and things like travel insurance. In order to improve the volunteer experience and generate additional revenue, Agape launched two subsidiary organisations:

Following significant growth in volunteer numbers and demand for a dedicated wildlife programme, in early 2014 Agape launched it's South Africa wildlife programme. For the first time volunteers were able to work up close with endangered species across South Africa, with activities including tracking, monitoring, tick balling, education programmes, and animal capture and transport. 

HIV and AIDS continue to be one of the most pressing issues affecting life in Sub-saharan Africa, affecting over 24 million people in the continent. In 2014, Agape launched a flagship volunteering programme to allow volunteers to work on the frontline of fighting and preventing this disease in Kenya. In partnership with the University of Nairobi, volunteers are enrolled in a two week HIV testing and counselling course in order to learn the skills required to help dedicated staff on the precipice of one of the world's most substantial health crisis. After training volunteers assist with testing programmes in the slums of Nairobi, delivering food and medical supplies to affected families and educating children and adults in affected areas.

Following several years of a low key sports programme in Kenya, intern Jack Murray travelled to Nairobi to develop and launch the Agape Volunteers Football Academy. The programme provided local children from disadvantaged backgrounds the opportunity to train on a daily basis with volunteer coaches, play in local leagues and most importantly, stay off the streets in the evening. At the same time, Jack worked with the local Kenyan team during the development of the new volunteer house, which replaced the old accomodation model of host families and placed all volunteers together in a large complex.

As the charity continued to grow, Agape placed its 1,000th volunteer, with numbers increasing year on year. Volunteers could now choose from four countries, and over 15 different programmes, including: teaching, orphanage, medical, HIV and AIDS, sports, music and wildlife. Volunteers also had easy access to a variety of additional trips, including safaris, mountain biking, rafting, mountain climbing, trekking and even bungee jumping.

Following several years of steady growth, Agape was now fully established within the global volunteering scene. However, having been founded by committed yet inexperienced individuals, some processes and policies were out of date and not fit for an organisation looking to revolutionise the overseas volunteering market. Over the following year, a number of projects were launched to help modernise the organisation:

• Development of a CRM: one of Agape's first employees was Amyus Bale, who took on numerous responsibilities but by 2016 had risen to Head of Administration. In the same year, Amyus decided to move on, leaving an incredible legacy, but also a large hole in terms of expertise. Agape took the decision to use this opportunity to replace it's booking and management system with a bespoke Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system;
• Legal and financial professionalisation: alongside technical developments the organisation also undertook a substantial review of its policies, procedures and protections to ensure that it was fit to take the place as one of the world's leading providers;
• US marketing expansion: in order to grow volunteers numbers, Agape took the decision to expand its marketing activities to the US, where a growing market of young and engaged potential volunteers was developing; and
• A new team: to support these projects and drive the organisation forward, new members joined the organisation and team roles altered. This included founder Guillaume Lefevre stepping down from the board and becoming the Chief Executive in order to take a stronger role in the day to day running of the organisation. Moreover, Charlie Bishop became the Chief Operating Officer, taking responsibility for the smooth running of humanitarian activities and volunteer programmes.

In 2016, after a four year association, Agape Volunteers parted company with Mansek Music School in order to launch a dedicated music programme for children from the poorest backgrounds in Accra, Ghana. The programme allowed volunteers to work in Ghana and hone the development of a new flagship project which would provide access to musical instruments and tuition to thousands of children.

In late 2017 month of planning and hard work came to fruition with the rebranding of Agape Volunteers as AV. In the background to this development, it also marked the culmination of years of work to professionalise and expand the organisation to the point where it was ready position itself as an industry leading voice in overseas volunteering, tourism and development. We are exceptionally proud of our progress to date, but even more excited about what the next few years has in store for us. #bepartofit