Volunteering Solutions

This was an amazing life experience. The city itself is amazing and full of things to do and places to see! I met so many people from all over the world and will forever hold them so dear to my heart. The elephants were a whole other level of amazing! I bonded with my elephant and by the time i left he was greeting me with trunk hugs and elephant squeaks. My mahout gave me a bracelet made of my elephants tail hair when i left that i dont think i will ever take off. When i got home i think i went through a short stage of depression as i missed my elephant and my new friends so much. useful tips would be to bring a small backpack to bring to the markets with you so you dont have to carry a bunch of little bags, bring old clothing that you dont care about to bath your elephant in, do not keep any food in your hut as ants will come with a full force behind them, bring a long phone charger cord as the plug in is on the opposite side of the room from the bed, bring rubber gloves that go up on your arms that fit you well to pick up elephant poop with (they supply them for you at the camp but they are not of good quality), Do not expect to get a lot of information about the elephants from the mahouts as they speak little to no english, your camp leader can answer all of your questions. I would like to mention that this camp is a camp where they put on daily elephant shows and trekking. They use bull hooks and some mahouts are not humane when using them. When i got there i was really disappointed in seeing a lot of abuse, but once i talked to the camp leader he told me that the things i saw were not tolerated and to speak up when i thought mahouts were being abusive! My trip became actually making sure elephants were not abused at the camp! it is not a place to go and experience the same as the elephant nature park, this is a camp where yes the elephants are abused and you need to help them! I got a mahout fired when i was there for abusing his elephant. you can make a serious difference at the camp, but dont go there with the expectation that it is not an abuse free camp it is quite the opposite! That being said there are many mahouts that treat their elephants like gold and would never cause them harm as they actually see them as a sacred animal for their culture. My elephant never had a mark on him the whole two weeks i was there, so i felt good leaving him behind. On your weekends really make sure to explore the city or take a day trip to Doi Inthanon or Chiang Rai. Chiang Mai is a beautiful place with so much culture to soak in! I highly recommend this program for anyone with a travel bug and a big heart!

My volunteer work in South Africa was an amazing experience that I will never forget. I lived in a house with about 30 other volunteers, so I never really had any privacy, but that way I got to know a lot of new people from many different countries with whom I explored Cape Town and its surroundings. I still have contact to some of them. So this program definitely helps to build international friendships. Cape Town and its surroundings is so beautiful and it offers many different things to do. I also enjoyed my child care project in a crèche very much. The kids were adorable and it was great to get an insight into the local child care work. However, you should be aware of the fact, that you can offer the kids a bit of a change while you're there, but you won't be able to change anything fundamentally. For me it was enough to just spend time with the children and be there for them, especially because the local staff didn't do much with them and they have very little stuff to play with. But if your goal is to make a big change, this program is not right for you. And of course you also need to know that you have to pay a lot of money for the sleeping place, for the food and for the whole organization. But in my opinion it's worth the money, because it's an experience that will impact you for the rest of your life, especially in the way you will think about foreign, but also your own culture.

The actual orphanage program was great and I'm really glad that I got to help out there. However the hostel was in a very expensive area which wasn't great for buying food and I would have preferred a nicer hostel in a cheaper area. There are quite a lot of things to do in beijing since it's the capital which is good and the subway there is also easy to use. However the buses aren't great and the bus I took to the orphanage broke down three times in the 2 weeks I was there! lol it was still a good experience though