Lovely volunteering experience in New Zealand

I volunteered in New Zealand for two weeks through one of IVHQ's partners: Sustainable Coastlines.

I was one of 4 international volunteers, and we primarily interacted with two different staff members. All the volunteers were women. Two volunteers were from Canada, one was from the UK, and I am from the US. Two were around the same age (college), and we had one senior age and then myself in my late-20s.

Sustainable Coastlines is a New Zealand charity that brings people together to reduce plastic pollution and other litter to protect the moana we all love.

During my two-week volunteering program focused on coastal and waterway conservation, I gained experience and knowledge of conservation methods while providing important support for local initiatives that work to keep New Zealand beautiful and clean.

Responsibilities
• Participated in beach cleanups, litter audits, and tree growth maintenance
• Assisted in two corporate events for a local energy company and a global tech company
• Helped collect over 1,000 pieces of litter

Highlights
• beach cleanups
• corporate events
• staff was very friendly
• staff helped me learn a lot about Maori culture
• had a lot of time for activities after work and got to explore a lot of Auckland and Rotorua
• able to bond with another volunteer during the experience

Room for improvement
• if I had not gotten a room with another volunteer in the hostel, I think my experience would have felt more overwhelming, intimidating, and lonely
• sometimes, it felt like the activities were being planned a bit last minute
• most of the work was manual labor and not where you had to use your brain, but that was fine for me because there's not much you can really ramp up on without previous context in two weeks