Africa - volunteer work any help appreciated!

Re: Africa - volunteer work any help appreciated!

Steph1006 — Thu, 24 May 2012 00:57:29 GMT

Thanks so much that's heaps of help! I had actually enquired at Moholoholo Wildlife Centre as a friend recommended it, good to hear another good thing. Feel free to send some photos yeah would be great ill PM my email to you. I am a little Elephant obsessed so thanks for the Botswana note!

I don't mind paying a bit more if its a good project and safe enough!

Re: Africa - volunteer work any help appreciated!

Caro Laithwaite VN — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:41:54 GMT

If you are thinking about zimbabwe l know chipingali wildlife orphanage from when it opened when l lived in Bulawayo. Has an excellent reputation and always looking for volunteers. Viv Wilson has passed it onto his son. It was always a treat going there Viv helped me out once he came over to SPCA when l contacted him and he ripped doreen the head of kennels at SPCA in Bulawayo a new hole. I had rung Viv about a young Black Backed Jackal that came in and doreen was keeping for publicity. He loaded it into a cage and took it to the orphanage.

Here is the facebook page

This is their main website

Re: Africa - volunteer work any help appreciated!

annaschu — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:44:49 GMT

Steph - if you email me at anna_schumann@hotmail.com I can show you some photos from various projects I did!

Re: Africa - volunteer work any help appreciated!

annaschu — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:40:43 GMT

Hi Steph,

This one's tricky - 'volunteer' work is non-regulated, I spent time in Africa 6 years ago travelling & volunteering and there were stories knocking around then of people paying out vast amounts of money and not getting anything like what they expected - being used as free labour, ending up with a bunch of gap year students drinking and doing little else...

Having said that, there are good projects out there but finding the gems is the difficult bit! I can highly recommend (from personal experience) African Conservation Experience - www.conservationexperience.net - they act as a central hub for a number of different projects that they oversee from game capture to community projects to wilderness conservation experiences. Do be prepared to pay out a large amount of money but don't be afraid to ask exactly where your money goes to, great if it's to the local community or the project you are working on, not so great if it's to lines someone's pockets.

Actual hands on work with wildlife/exotic animals is very hard to get, as I'm sure you're aware it's hugely sought after, however there are big cats projects in South Africa that I'm sure others have experience of and will post about. One thing I did that you may be interested in was volunteering via ACE (see website above) at Moholoholo Wildlife Centre - you will get hands on experience with a variety of wildlife here, it's an interesting place!

I also spent many months on a project in Botswana monitering wild populations of all sorts of animals from leopards to elephants (and have been elephant obsessed ever since!) which has to be one of the highlights of my life so far...

You may end up paying a little more going through an organisation such as ACE, but you have more come back if something is amiss - and it's also easier for help with travel, accomodation and insurance - getting insurance that covers you for working with wild animals in Africa is not an easy thing!

Good luck - what ever else you'll have an amazing time, I'm very jealous!!

Anna