The Elephant Freedom Project Sri Lanka

The Elephant Freedom Project (Ananada Elephant Sanctuary) has been an amazing experience which I highly recommend. This program exceeded my expectations and provided a great insight into Sri Lankan elephants. The program's aim is to rescue elephants and provide them with a safe and happy life where they are not being used for riding or hard labour. They let the elephant roam freely and do not chain it up or restrict them in anyway.

I stayed 2 nights at the elephant project and was welcomed into the home of a beautiful Sri Lankan family who provided me with food, tea and travel advice. They were very friendly and accommodating but most importantly, they were very passionate about keeping this project alive. The full day activities included cleaning the elephant enclosure, walking with the elephant, a cooking lesson, a trip to a dung factory where elephant dung is made into a variety of stationary, lunch, washing the elephant in the river and lastly, a trip to a local school to teach English.

The guide during our program was amazing, knowledgeable, funny and a great photographer! He respected the elephant and was happy to answer any question we had. My favourite part of the day was washing the elephant where we used coconut shells to scrub the elephant clean. He was a very happy elephant whilst our group was pampering him.

This program is the only one of its kind in this area of Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, the other elephant 'sanctuaries' in this area mistreat their elephants by chaining them up and using them for elephant rides.

It has been an absolute pleasure to support this program and I hope to see it continue to grow in the future with more volunteers and travellers.

I could not have asked for a better experience at the Elephant freedom project (Ananda Elephant Sanctuary)!
The hosts were so lovely and helped us with transport, suggestions and advice and made us the most delicious food. We mentioned we loved naan at breakfast and they made us naan for dinner! They also continuously served us coffee and tea and looked after us so well!

Our time with elephant Nilame was a once in a lifetime experience! He is the most gentle and beautiful elephant. We are so proud to support this project where the elephant is not chained or beaten or ridden. Nilame is treated with so much love and care!!

I will never forget my time at Ananda Elephant Sanctuary. My only wish is that I could have stayed here longer! I would 100% recommend it to everyone!

I stayed in the project for two weeks, and was amazing, is really a very complete experience because you are helping, knowing the culture and also having fun. When you stay here, you stay at the family house which everyone is going to do the best for you to feel like home, they were very worry about me when I was planning my next place to visit since I was traveling alone and I felt that they were my sri lankan family, and the food is sooo good! the best curry I try in all sri lanka.
My favorite part of the day was to go to the river to wash manika and in my finals days also seetha (the elephants), every day I saw a different type of animal specially beautiful birds! I was always prepare to take pictures to them with my camera. And What I really love to do after finishing the daily program was to sit outside and just relax, the nature environment really disconnect you and made me felt very peaceful, also share with the family.
Another thing is that since I was staying for longer, I had the chance to go to kandy for the day and also do a lovely trip to visit sri lankan robin hood village.
Every day you met people from different countries so you can have the chance to meet people and also travel with them! thats was al least my experience that after the volunteer I had the chance to travel with some people I met. Also the staff is very welcoming and nice! I really have a great experience meeting them and knowing them, I can say that now I have also friends in sri lanka :).
Other thing that made this two weeks great, was to go to the english class, you feel great after doing it because you can really tell that for those students is very important to have you there, you are helping them not only in improving their english skills, also they have the chance to know your culture.
So totally I recommend visiting the elephant freedom project, even if it is just for a day, I feel that if I hadn't go there, and I just had travel, I wouldn't had known better real sri lankan culture.