Hawke Ambassador

Have you ever considered volunteering overseas?

As part of UniSA’s Hawke Ambassador International Volunteer Experience Program, you can make a positive difference not only to your life and career prospects but to the lives of others, while also earning credit toward your degree.

The Hawke Ambassador is an international volunteering placement and internship program named in honour of former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. As such, the program seeks to continue the former Prime Minister’s foreign policy focus on encouraging Australia's engagement with developmental sectors in various regions of the world, particularly in the developing world. As an 18 unit course, it includes an overseas volunteer component, as well as academic and skill-based learning outcomes.

The program offers a unique alternative form of international engagement to complement the more traditional avenues available to university students. Students will volunteer their time and skills with an international non-government organisation (NGO), usually in an overseas location. In this sense, the Hawke Ambassadorship is neither simply a study tour nor a study abroad semester. Since its inception in 2007, well over 100 students have benefited from this program, volunteering with various local or international NGOs in various locations in Asia, Central and South America, Africa, as well as Europe and Oceania.

It differs from the study tour with its focus on volunteering, and by the duration a student spends overseas on the ground (12 weeks). At the same time, even if it takes place over the same period as an exchange program (an entire study period or 18 units equivalent), it remains a volunteer program rather than formal study at an overseas university. Situated in the middle of your degree, the Hawke Ambassadorship aims to be informed by the study students have already engaged in, and to enrich their further study.