I had the opportunity to take a career break at the start of 2016 and I wanted to spend some time volunteering in Africa, putting my environmental health and safety career expertise to good use and be a part of making a small difference to communities that would benefit from sustainable development initiatives. SEED Madagascar gave me the opportunity to do just that. Firstly, they are one of the only sustainable development charities that offers a short-term 3 month program, which fitted in with my schedule perfectly. They were also incredibly friendly, helpful in talking thrugh the different options available to me and flexible in their approach. I enjoyed the 10 week program so much, that I extended my stay for 2 weeks to offer my assistance in reporting projects back in the office.

The Pioneer offers something for everyone who is interested in international sustainable development. You get to be involved in education, health sanitation, sustainable livelihoods and conservation projects, which gives a great insight into the different types of work and a good understanding of the different interconnected factors at play when it comes to development and cultural behavioural change.

At first, I wasn't sure I wanted to spend 6 weeks on a construction site building a school building. However, this turned out to be my highlight and was so rewarding. You really get to live and work with the local community and can see that your efforts will actually make a real impact to a certain number of people. Within 6 weeks, we had almost completed a full school building and finished off painting the first and built 40 desks, so that an additional 160 students could attend the lycee. Whilst here, I also got the chance to teach the students English, which was a great experience. We were greeted through town each evneing as we went to get a cold beer at Lily's Bar with cries of our names from the children as we passed. It was a truly enriching experience and I couldn't recommend it enough.

Theres lots of stories & lots of memories! The people & scenery are fantastic, as is the wildlife. I should also point out that I am a little older than the usual volunteer (43) so if you are older, I would still recommend this. I will be going back anyway!

If you have a morbid fear of spiders, you're going to struggle as there are a lot! However, I was amazed at how beautiful spiders can be.

There were a couple of highlights though - walking back after a night transect towards the end of my stay, I still hadn't seen the infamous mouse lemur when about 100 yds from camp, I spotted the tel tale glow of eyes caught in my torch light & it slowly dawned on me that they weren't the wooly or dwarf ones we had been seeing on every night transect but much smaller. I initially thought that there were a few there then I realised that it was just one but moving VERY quickly! Good job he was quick really as we also spotted a snake in the tree trying to follow him! A few days later, Tsiriky or Hoobie came into camp & said that they had found a mouse lemur nest too which wasn't far away.

Then another day, we were out looking for seeds (for a reforestation project) when we spotted a tiny little iridescent gold frog sitting on one of the plants we were picking seeds from. none of the guides recognised it & so we took it back to camp for DNA testing (waiting for results)

One day the collared lemurs came through camp while I was chilling in the hammock. There must have been around 10 of them & one female came right down the branch to within 3 feet of me & hung there staring at me for a few minutes
Learning how to pin butterflies was pretty cool too

Then there was...

(apologies, I can't get any photos to upload for some reason, though I have loads!)

The most interesting about my stay, I found to see on how many ways you can do biological research. I have learnt a lot of it, it is not in my field of interest, but I think really important to understand how you can find out about the biodiversity. I found the azafady as organisation really respectful to the villagers and I had the idea we were going along with each other really well. Things we were doing, where birth spotting, pit traps, butterfly catching, PCQ and many more. I found it really special to live in a really basic place next to some small villages. Being really busy in the nature, every day walking and doing research. I was interesting to work together with all sorts of people of different background, different fields of interests and different countries. We had a antropologist, biologist, medicin and geogologist.

During my short stay at the Azafady camp and St Luce, I was treated to some incredible nature, a wide variety of activities, a brilliant social scene (football, cards and a few beers every now and then) and most importantly, genuine conservation opportunities that are really going towards helping the community and the wildlife.

The local community are very friendly and are pleased to have conservation workers there. Local understanding of the importance of conservation was obvious throughout the community and many members of the community now work for Azafady in order to help.

This programme offered me a truly unique experience and has to be up there with one of my most enjoyable trips. The work I was involved with was incredibly interesting, rewarding but most of all thought provoking. The staff, volunteers and particularly the locals created a great environment to live and work in. I hope I get the opportunity to go back!

In the summer I travelled to a very rural town in the Anosy region of Madagascar called Tsigonariha (mind my spelling.) I helped reconstruct a primary school by making cement blocks and building benches. We also had Malagasy lessons in the mornings before working! It was fun to try speak it with locals and it made the children of the village smile a lot. Along with that I met incredible people with such mind blowing stories and even met a lemur. Feeling that I contributed to the happiness and education of 200 children inspired me to do more volunteering in the future and help more people :)

It was the most rewarding experience I have ever had and would recommend anyone to do the same. The Azafady staff was more than nice, always looking after you and checking on you.
I felt like I experienced the culture of Madagascar and I loved living with almost nothing, peeing in latrines and taking showers with buckets. It doesn't sound fun but it really made me appreciate everything I have at home. I feel more conscious about how lucky I am in many decisions I make, this experience really changed me as a person.

Madagascar is a very special place with many unique forms of life which are found nowhere else. It has been a great experience and a privilege for me to take part in Azafady's conservation programme in Sainte-Luce, to get to see and research some of the island's amazing wildlife. Of the many special moments I had, my favourite was seeing the brown lemurs on a moonlit night leap through the treetops.

I was a volunteer back in 2012 with Azafady, and can honestly and with no exaggeration say it has changed my life.

As a short-term volunteer I joined the Pioneers for just 3 weeks, working on a school refurbishment project out in rural Madagascar. The local staff were lovely, caring people, and the long-term international volunteers who acted as co-ordinators were great too - hands on, got involved in the work and really made you feel valued.

The benefit of the work we were doing was obvious - a school which was barely usable, leaking and not a good learning environment was transformed over the course of just a few weeks! Although almost none of us had any prior construction experience, the professional local team taught us well, and by the end of it I was a cement mixing master.

It's no picnic though - as Azafady tell you before you go, you do need to be prepared to work hard, to eat plain food, and to brave long drop latrines. We also had issues some days with delayed construction supplies or last minute changes to plans - things don't work as smoothly as we're used to. However, given how tough the situation is in Madagascar most of the time, little issues like this are to be expected, and for me they are part of the adventure!

This experience reignited my love of travel and volunteering, and I've returned to Madagascar since to work with Azafady again - and I wouldn't be surprised to go back a third time!

Fantastic charity doing great work. Be a part of it!