Teaching English & conservation holiday in Sri Lanka

The project:

Our combined teaching & conservation project in Wasgamuwa National Park is run in conjunction with a Conservation Society. The organisation has the best interests of the wildlife and people of Sri Lanka at their heart, and their core values reflect this. By running volunteer projects and eco tours, they are also at the forefront of responsible tourism initiatives in Sri Lanka and we are very proud to work with them to promote these values.

The society employs almost entirely locally sourced staff, many from nearby villages who benefit from conservation training and the English language skills provided by our volunteers. By learning English village youth will be able to apply for jobs outside the farming system and ideally have an added option of contributing to society in a non-labour only role. The main aims of the conservation project are to save elephants, other biodiversity and their habitats by helping people.

On this project, you will live in a volunteer house in the local village, which allows total integration into the local community. This also ensures that volunteers give back to the community in the form of revenue (local shops, transport etc are all used), as well as by their contribution to local conservation and teaching goals. The volunteer house is entirely eco friendly and powered by solar power, and so energy use is minimal. You will be briefed in detail about culturally sensitive subjects on arrival in order to make sure you are familiar with and can follow local customs. The project aims, in all ways, to leave only a positive footprint on the local community.

Our company:

You taking part in this project enables us to continue to donate financial assistance as well as necessary goods, where it is needed around the world. Examples of donations include building new classrooms, providing school uniforms for poorer students, buying computers, sports equipment, playgrounds, toys, mattresses, classroom equipment and funding school trips and the building of libraries, and more. We also donate significantly to conservation research efforts and the purchasing of necessary conservation equipment. In the past, these donations have been made in all continents and in projects where we work, and some where we do not work.

Recent donations made in Summer 2008 include:

• Approximately £1,500 towards the building of a desperately needed classroom in a Zulu school in eMakhosini, South Africa.
• £1,500 to build a roof at the Grace Kennet Foundation Orphanage in Madurai, India. This was a donation made to match the fundraising efforts of an ex volunteer. A tree had fallen through the roof of the orphanage during a storm, and so a large part of the building was un-usable and dangerous. Work is currently beginning and should be finished by early 2009.
• Approximately £880 to Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre in Malaysia to help publicise the centre and draw funds to care for injured and abandoned Orang Utans.

We employ an all local staff force in most of our destination countries, which benefits the local economy. These range from skilled country managers, who are often pillars of their community, to local labourers and craftspeople. We believe in paying our overseas staff fairly, and many are rewarded with higher than average wages for local standards. When required, we send local staff on training courses to widen their skills. For example, a member of staff in South Africa recently attended an ‘eco-school’. Here, she was trained in eco teaching methods, which she will take to the schools around her region of South Africa to encourage eco-friendly farming methods.

We are committed to upholding strict ethical standards that ensure a positive and lasting impact upon the environments, communities, institutions, volunteers, animals, children and people that we work with. For example:

• We encourage our volunteers to make the most of local opportunities available to them, such as shopping at local markets, eating in local restaurants and using local services and transport.
• We encourage volunteers to pay fairly for goods and services. We believe that over payment for goods and services or payment to beggars can have negative consequences and result in the over-reliance of tourism within the local community.
• We strongly advise against purchasing wildlife souvenirs or anything which may perpetuate the death or cruel treatment of animals for the purpose of profit.
• We advise on dress codes and codes of behaviour in all of our destination countries to ensure volunteers don’t cause offence to local communities.

Our aim is to create always a win-win-win situation in terms of the benefits for the local communities and institutions that we work in, for us and for the volunteer. We do not embark on any project that is not beneficial to the communities, institutes or volunteers. We conduct regular volunteer satisfaction surveys to monitor our performance.

Our projects enable vital conservation, research, care and education work to take place directly where it is most needed. For example, the schools where we teach English very often have no other English teachers, and so they rely on us for continued lessons. We kept a Species Survival Conservation project in South Africa afloat until completion after it was threatened by lack of funds. Our volunteers contribute, all over the world, to projects that would not exist without them.