Is a Global Action or a World Challenge trip worth going on? Although the activities and the experience looks amazing it is prohibitively expensive. I have looked on line and found similar holiday/ volunteering experiences for a fraction of the cost.
It seems that what one is paying for is safety, the educational award and (rightly so) the teacher’s expenses. Is there another way to add these aspects and make this sort of trip possible but affordable?
I know that the young people are supposed to fundraise but realistically can they raise such exhorbitant sums without parental help? What scares me is that as a parent you are liable for the cost once the YP has signed up regardless of how much they have raised and if like me you couldn’t cover this without hardship then that could be a problem.

My DD went on an amazing trip (to Nepal) in the summer after GCSEs with school. In theory they were supposed to fund-raise but if there was a choice between washing cars/packing bags and keeping up with schoolwork or revising then school won every time. We ended up paying for the majority of the cost - plus quite a lot of kit.
It was a really great experience and she grew up in leaps on it and over the rest of the summer as a result of it.
However I always expected to be paying. If you are talking about hardship in that scenario then I would say No. There will be other opportunities.

That has been my precise concern. I can imagine that although the intent to fundraisers is there that getting good results in GCSEs and Al levels outweighs fundraising for the trip hands down and I would be the one getting an extra job.
Do trips like this sway university entrance in YPs favour or is it just as good to have volunteered in the local OAP facility or for St. John etc?

Just doing it, no value at all re Brownie points for Personal Statement etc. Skills / reflections that you take away from the experience, that are relevant to your course, probably. As a life experience for its own sake, why not, if you can afford it? People go on hideously expensive cruises and seek out GB style fish and chips in every port .

DD is off to Madagascar with WC after A levels, paying for it through a part time job as a lifeguard.

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I think there is a lot to be gained from these trips, BUT, and it is a big but, there is a lot of controversy about sending a pack (or rather pack after pack) of middle class school children to developing countries to do good by building schools or whatever. If the purpose is really this, then donate to a charity who provides people in the country with the skills they need. If the purpose is an expensive holiday with feel good factor then this might be the answer. But it won't help on a UCAS form.
There is also some concern that some of the children in these areas are being subjected to a constant round of teenagers befriending them, hugging them for selfies & then disappearing after a couple of weeks.
Can you tell I don't really agree with them? Would I have allowed my children to go? I'm glad they didn't ask, and I do refuse to contribute to friends' children's expeditions. Google "volunteerism" if you want views on the (profit making) programme.
Of course none of this means they won't have a good time & learn some useful skills, grow up a bit etc etc.

Thank you for this perspective Scary Mum it helps no end with my guilt. My damn brain has been going. “You are letting your child down because you can’t afford it” “you are going to affect your child’s prospects”, “She won’t have anything exciting to put on her UCAS form” “how will she miss out if she doesn’t go?” Etc.

Most children won't go. Does that help? Honestly, read up about "voluntourism". (rather than volunteerism as I typed above)

I don't agree with these at all. My DS wasn't interested and I refuse to support other peoples children going on a 'jolly'. Volunteering locally where you can really help over a long period of time is far more valuable and costs nothing.

I share Scary's concerns about the middle class children thing. It is becoming quite well publicised now in both mainstream and academic literature. My DD, who has studied a lot of issues around this (check out Edward Said's 'Orientalism' if you want the roots of my/Scary's/others' distaste, even if it isn't called this) is violently against any such trips.

If a child wishes to do good and volunteer, there are many opportunities in this country. If a child wishes to have a nice posh holiday funded by themselves, their parents or (horror!) the parents of others, then be honest and call it what it is - a privileged holiday for middle class children. In my view (which has hardened from speaking with my own children) these are horrid, harmful things which ought to be challenged in strong terms. The problems of the global south are not going to be solved by parachuting white children in to paint a school; and it isn't benign for those who go either, as they may end up believing they have done some real good.

Universities are unimpressed, by the way.
+1 in bold.

My own sons went to a school in East Africa which their school has been helping to fund for decades. Even within this situation (not profit making, a long established link, no one else asked to pay, not done as 'charity' but as a visit to learn) both ended up feeling a bit uncomfortable with the perceived power balances and the inevitable judgements made on both sides.

I am not a fan. I told my kids that if they wanted to go they would have to raise the entire amount themselves as there are plenty of other true volunteering, where they can learn a lot about themselves, and improve other people's lives, (albeit not on a nice holiday), that costs very little or nothing at all. Voluntouring completely sums it up.

Having friends who live in one of the countries where it takes place, we have been told that one group comes and builds a wall, the next group takes the wall down...and so on...she was being facetious but that is basically what happens. Yes your child may "grow" from the experience (but they will just leaving home and going to uni) but don't kid yourself that the receiving country is getting much out of it. And, incidentally, they will get a similar amount of growing if they go on a school trip for a week to deepest darkest Wales, and won't have to pretend to like hugging a small child for a selfie either....

It is another one of those things that a uni admissions tutor told me, he has to stop his eyes rolling or glazing over when another "bright young thing with deep pocketed parents" starts spouting about in interview - they do not rate it, as they know that, sadly, it is out of the realm of the vast majority of students - I have lost count of how many fundraising pages have appeared on my F/B feed, from friends asking people to help their child go on a WC "jolly"....short shrift from me, I'm afraid.

I would go so far as to say it is a nonsense - if you look at the schools that run it "successfully" (ie with vast numbers going) you will see the demographic that populate them - I'm afraid that the sort of "learning about themselves" that goes on there is vastly limited - and not something I would encourage my kids to do.