GoEco

Program Reviews

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Erin
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Trip of a lifetime!

I chose this program because I wanted to gain experience working with animals for my future career and I could have never imagined everything I would get to do. The volunteers are in charge of caring for the babies and helping with various projects around the orphanage. While I was there they had 3 baby barn owls, a baby serval, a baby duiker, and 3 baby pookies along with some other critters that we were in charge of caring for. Each day we also get an hour of animal time which allows us to spend time with any of the animals at the orphanage. The amount of knowledge and experienced gained in just 5 short weeks was incredible!

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Casey
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Tel Aviv Refugee Health Clinic

I was able to volunteer at the refugee health clinic in Tel Aviv. The clinic staff was so welcoming when I first arrived, and I learned so much in my short time there. It has benefited my career in the health field. I was able to learn and shadow doctors, while also learning how to communicate with other cultures. This was a chance in a lifetime that I will be forever grateful for!

What would you improve about this program?
This program could be improved by giving more information about the clinic and what the person is doing during orientation.
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Laurence
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Indonesian Lifestyle

I volunteered with the Green Lion Bali for 2 weeks. Those two weeks flew by way too fast! If I had the chance to do it over again, I would have stayed at least a month! The people I worked with, the friends I made, the staff and the locals were definitely the best part of this trip! During the first week, we got to explore the village (Penestanan Kaja), Ubud, the rice fields and many more places! This week was called the orientation week. We had a cooking class and a cultural class, we learned the basics of Bahasa language, we went to a traditional Balinese dance show in central Ubud, we visited a breathtaking temple and we had a 3-hour walk through the paddy fields. The very purpose of this orientation week was to help us prepare for the volunteer project the following week. At the end, we got assigned a school and a class to teach English. Every day, we would have to come up with simple activities for the children to learn English. There was also someone from the staff to help us translate in Bahasa for the kids. It was very helpful!
These two weeks passed by so fast! I would go back in a heartbeat! Thank you to everyone, especially the Green Lion and Go Eco, it was a pleasure to visit Indonesia!

What would you improve about this program?
During the orientation week, there should be some activities concerning English teaching. Sometimes it was difficult to find something to teach to the class every day.
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Julia
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Crabs caught!

Between the many activities that we do during this project, one of them includes to catch some crabs to feed the turtles. One thing that you learn during this activity is that crabs are very smart creatures, and is not that easy to caught them. But even been hard, it was very fun to do it.

What would you improve about this program?
the wi-fi on the accommodations.
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Tolontan
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Love tops all, and other ideas from Sri Lanka

After two weeks at the disabled orphanage in Kandy, Sri Lanka, I came to realize that love is the foundation of every community worldwide. Meeting people who have nothing to lose and open up their livesto strangers who want to help them is just what happened to me during the two weeks I spent at this project Sri Lanka.
Seeing people who have nothing in their lifes, but eachother s friendship is an experience words can not describe. After the daily 6 hours of polishing nails, dancing to indian music, feeding newborns, listening to long singhalese monologues and lots of smiling,I couldn t help but feel greatful I had the chance to meet these people. The most amazing thing that happened was when one if the differently abled girls was crying, another one wheel-chaired hairself next to hair, held her hand, smiled and the other one stopped crying. I was left dumbfounded.

What would you improve about this program?
NOTGING. and that is the bottom line to it
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Alexis
4/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Elephant care in Surin village

I’ve never been so close to those amazingly gigantic creatures, so close that I could feel their snuffling; elephants’ trunks are like huge pipes, but more flexible and powerful. Muscles in their trunks make it easier for them to twirl and tear the leaves on the banana trees at once before chewing. Those pipes can also be used to storage water as they always put their trunks inside their mouths after sucking water that could fill out half of their trunks.
During my homestay in Surin village, I was able to take care of Bank, a pregnant 18years old elephant. Because of her pregnancy, her emotion was a little bit unstable and she probably did not like the water very much (cause she was pretty restless and kept hitting the ground with her trunk before going inside the river). I help the Mahoo(owner of the elephant) scrub his elephant; sometimes owners asked us volunteers to climb up elephants' backs, and that was the time when I felt extremely insecure but exhilarating! Why? Because what elephants would do was pretty inestimable, lean to one side and dump us into the river? Diving to wet us dummies on their backs?... Who knows? At this point, here's a tip: do not ride on a male elephant if you are not prepared to dive all the time, because they are like whales, excellant swimmers!!! They go up and down, without giving you time to breathe...My roomate was dare to ride on a male elephant, and that fascinated and frightened her pretty much..haha.
Taking elephants to a shower was just one of the fabulous experiences I had during my stay in Surin village. There are other wonderful experiences to, like going to the local market (which I love the most because the dim-sum and fruits there were extremely delicious and cheap), going to a circut, and so on..
In all, I would never forget my stay there~

What would you improve about this program?
I suggest the working time per time could be longer because there's only up to three hours each day...during spare time, maybe the volunteer leaders could organize us to visit neighbors (especially those who have elephants)...
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Naomi
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

A program that made me love Israel and the desert

This program was truly amazing. Not only because I worked with animals, but also because of the amazing landscape I lived in, the beauty of the desert, but also the atmosphere... I met a lot of people from all around the world and so different culture (Americans, Europeens, Asians..) and I met Israel through the people who worked in the reserve. I think the best way to really know a country is to meet the population. This experience really changed me.

What would you improve about this program?
I just didn't really understood what the 500 dollars were for (the accomodation was free as we volunteered, we paid for food, the tour in Jerusalem was free...)
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Emily
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Social Work Projects in Costa Rica

The place I volunteered at the most in Costa Rica was at a school called Escuela Granadilla Norte. I was basically an aide in a kindergarten classroom. I felt like my biggest impact was making work a little easier for some of the teachers there. I felt like I could have contributed more during my volunteering hours if I had been teaching English. However, since I wanted to spend my volunteering hours immersed in Spanish, this seemed like my best option. The teachers at the school made me feel incredibly welcome. All the preschool and kindergarten teachers made a real effort to be nice to me and speak slowly to help me understand things. Saying goodbye to the students and the teachers was incredibly hard, but the hard goodbye reminded me how lucky I was to have had such a good experience.

What would you improve about this program?
After I had been working at Escuela Granadilla Norte for about a week, the teachers found out that I had been walking to the school. They chastised me for not busing to the school, since they said the area was not safe for me. I wish I had been told this in my native language (English) before I started volunteering there by GoEco or CRLA staff.
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Marci
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Great Experience in Zim!

Wow! What can I say?! I signed up for this program because of other people's reviews. I was not disappointed! I was looking for a program with a lot of hands on animal time and that is exactly what I got. One of the coolest things I was able to do while at the wildlife orphanage was microchip a hyena. They had rescued some hyenas and unfortunately, could not return them to the wild. My time spent there included prepping enclosures for them so we could move them to a better and more suited area of the orphanage. In order to move them, we needed to dart them, collect health information, microchip them, and then relocate before they woke up. It was so cool that the orphanage lets you do these types of things with their supervision. Also, while I was there, a monkey somehow got a cut on it's leg. We had to dart him as well so stitches could be put in. One of the volunteers there had just graduated from vet school so they let her administer the stitches with their supervision.

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Zach
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Life in the Bush

Through my experience in the Greater Kruger Area I was exposed to this side of life I had only seen in my dreams. Doing a wildlife conservation trip gave me some of the most unreal encounters with some of the most majestic and intriguing African wildlife. One of my most memorable experiences was during a night drive when a bull elephant looking for a mate charged our game vehicle. It was so dark out we could barley see 10 feet in front of us and we all stood frozen as we heard this giant run full speed for our car. Of course we knew in the back of our heads that we were safe because of our outstanding guide who experiences this kind of behavior on the regular. By banging the side of the car with his rifle, our guide stopped the elephant right in his tracks purely by using noise. It was amazing to be able to see these creatures in the natural environment and is a memory I can never forget.