Dream come true!

We volunteered to join two projects with VWI and started at Elephant village. Upon arrival in Jaipur me and my husband were picked up from the airport late at night by the coordinator and immediately felt welcomed and taken care of. We received an itinerary which explained everything in great detail and was very helpful for us to understand what the elephant project involved. We were collected every morning on time at 5am. The coordinator for the elephant village was super flexible -if we woke up late it was never a problem. He met us as the sun started to rise with a big smile making everything joyful from the beginning . The work was much easier than we initially thought. The elephant huts were cleaned every morning followed by elephant showers and then feeding time. The elephants are working animals, this at first made us feel a little uncomfortable. But as the days went by and after learning more about the government scheme for families and elephants. The elephants are always very gentle and calm, and we soon realised that they were very well taken care of by their owners (mahout). We felt overwhelmed by their kindness and care- the mahouts who have very little demonstrated such patience and love for their individual elephants.. and so it was clear to us that this was a positive environment for them all.