The Simple Things Avi's Survivor Story

The survivor winner used his prize money to fund a web series based in Ghana.

- Kelly Bertrand

With $100,000 in his pocket, Survivor season one winner Avi Duckor-Jones had the world at his feet.

Emerging victorious from 40 days in the Nicaraguan jungle, the intrepid teacher had some choices to make. A five-star, round-the-world holiday? Staying at the best hotels and eating at the best restaurants? A flashy new car? Or even a deposit on an Auckland house?

Heading back to unforgiving, rugged and dangerous jungle would be the last thing on most people’s minds, but that’s exactly what Avi (33) did, using his hard-earned winnings to fund the TVNZ web series Avi’s Return to Ghana.

And he was quick about it! In the week after his win, he was already organising equipment and flights to get back to the West African country, where he’d taught teenagers at a school at Cape Three Points, in the nation’s south.

“It was always my intention to go back – I just wasn’t sure when and how,” he tells. “It’s not like going to Australia or Rarotonga, you know! But when I won the show, I knew, ‘this is it.’”

It was in 2014 when Avi, then living a comfortable life in Manhattan taking American students on National Geographic trips and working in bars and restaurants, realised he was “burnt out” by city life.

He missed adventures and being challenged, so he jumped on a plane – well, several planes – and took up a post at Trinity Yard School in Ghana. It was an experience, he says, that was one of the best and hardest of his life.

“It was the simple life and I loved it,” he says. “I was living in a shack, we had bucket showers. If the power went out, which it often did, you’d just have a fire.”