Freddie Coughlin (T 22)

“It has just been the most incredible opportunity and I couldn’t recommend it to future OWs enough.”

Freddie is a very recent Old Wellingtonian (Head of College, 2022) and 2022 Bevir recipient. After leaving College, he decided to take a gap year to gain experience and hands-on insight into different aspects of politics and international relations, ahead of starting his degree in International Relations at St Andrew’s in September 2023. Through the grant, Freddie was able to work with two fantastic charities in Africa and Bangkok.

Brass for Africa, Uganda

From Christmas 2022 onwards, Freddie worked for four months in Kampala, Uganda, as a volunteer/intern at Brass for Africa in their Media and Partnerships department. Brass for Africa provides music and life skills education to over 1,500 participants from marginalised groups across Uganda, such as refugees, people living with disabilities and children from informal settlements. His role was to bring the stories from the outreaches alive for a global audience of donors, partners, supporters and future supporters! To do this, BfA used both written and audio visual media across their website and social media platforms.

During his four months, Freddie also mentored the new (and only) member of the Africa-side media/marketing department so that she had full executive and practical skills to continue the work they had done together. Highlights included surpassing the funding targets and expectations on March’s Gender Equality campaign and reporting on outreaches across Uganda such as on Lake Victoria’s islands which suffer from extreme HIV/AIDS rates, and to the South Sudan border in Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement working with residents of one of the world’s largest refugee settlements.

 Big Trees, Bangkok

In Spring 2023, Freddie worked for urban tree conservation charity Big Trees, living in Bangkok, and working in a similar media role to his previous experiences. The charity had been looking to increase their English language presence online, and so he wrote reports, rewrote existing content and created digital designs to aid their growth towards international partners and English-speaking supporters within Thailand.

 Freddie is spending the rest of his gap year in South East Asia to travel in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, and will soon be returning to the UK to begin his undergraduate studies.