Sustainable Community & Gorilla Conservation Program

We’re often told Big Beyond is unique and unparalleled in this world! We like to focus on that. My goal was to invest human resource (ideas, knowledge, skills, motivation) in remote communities of Africa and then discovered self-funded volunteer programmes could enable this investment to be sustainable.

We do not just find a place, then find things for volunteers to do in a ‘destination’, we have a specific mission and then find volunteers to help make our critical grassroots projects possible. Our volunteer programmes are bespoke, shaped around each individual and the project needs at the time - no one has had the exact same programme in the history of Big Beyond! We absolutely love to wow every volunteer by creatively transferring their personal or professional abilities to real development or conservation work. We offer volunteers an opportunity to immerse, genuinely, in communities way beyond the tourist trail. Our volunteers are most certainly names, not numbers.

Sustainability is at the heart of Big Beyond. We have spent years researching the communities in which we work - understanding their needs, the culture and also the challenges of the wildlife parks alongside. Our philosophy is to invest in Africa beyond handouts and grow the potential of its own people through building capacity.

Our volunteers make this possible. We work across a range of sectors. In health, we focus on disease prevention rather than treatment. In business, we support local people in generating their own family income and learning to save rather than wait for donations. In education, we do not replace jobs but build the strength of local people to lead their own education opportunities in the long term. For the future of the natural world, we have a number of conservation initiatives in action. We always consider what happens if Big Beyond had to go tomorrow.

I’m confident to say that’s far beyond what anyone usually expects. We are fully embedded into the communities we support and work hand-in-hand with local people every day. Volunteers make genuine local friends in both Uganda and Ethiopia. They have the chance to learn about the depths of culture from day one and are free and encouraged to immerse at every minute of the day!

We create a very easy platform to make that possible. It’s actually what becomes the biggest impact on most volunteers’ experience with Big Beyond.

Volunteering abroad is possibly the most personally enriching and positive way to travel the world - people are also allowed to have different motivations.

This may be to travel in a different way to their normal adventures, to experience and learn about different cultures or to see something they have dreamed of on the same trip. It may be to give back and help the people or wildlife in Africa. It may be to push yourself gaining personal and professional experience. It could be for a career or university break or even after retirement.

There are loads of options out there suited to different people and motivations - my advice is to do your research and ensure that the program you choose is in line with your philosophy, that they will create positive impact through projects whatever your personal motivations and that it will give you what you would like to get out of it too.