Overseas Volunteering: Take Care of Animals at a Volunteer Program

Posted by Tracy Leske on April 30th, 2016

With all the unique experiences you are likely to encounter, volunteer work with animals can be very rewarding, especially when you sign up for an overseas animal welfare and conservation project. Being a volunteer overseas allows everyday people to take care of animals that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to., and with some of the most unique programs are in Australia, you can partner up with a not for profit organisation that can direct you to worthwhile animal welfare and conservation projects in various states.

The safest and most effective way to volunteer abroad is to sign up to volunteer with a recruitment company. Look for a not for profit organisation that specialises in this kind of overseas volunteering, aiming to recruit volunteers for the rehabilitation, care, rescue and release of animals. One of the best overseas volunteer organisations is in Australia, giving you access to animal hospitals, rescue centres and carers who look after displaced and rescued wildlife.

A volunteer recruitment specialist links nature and animal lovers around the world with a network of sustainable, conscientious and ethical animal welfare organisations. By joining a project, you can make a difference by contributing positively to the welfare of animals while benefitting from a very different and unique travel experience. This is your chance to contribute to a meaningful animal conservation and welfare project.

If you want to be pro-active in saving and taking care of animals and wildlife, overseas volunteering opportunities are few and far between. There aren’t many organisations that have the best interests of the animals at heart, so you need to ensure you choose an organisation who are strict in their policies regarding animals and the local community. Many volunteer recruitment agencies fail to check if the programs they support have the best interests of the environment and the animals in mind, resulting in more harmful and unethical behaviour, unsustainable projects and the continuously draining of community resources due to the presence of volunteers. Moreover, the natural habitat and local wildlife communities are affected in a bad way. Hence, you need to make sure that you are working with a volunteer recruitment agency that follows a sensible wildlife code and ethical standards for overseas volunteering.

Look for a volunteer recruitment organisation that carefully chooses the overseas volunteer projects that they represent. To do this, they must have personally visited and experienced those projects in order to effectively evaluate them, ensuring the work is safe and rewarding and the food and accommodation is adequate. This is the only way that recruitment organisations can be sure that the projects meet their wildlife code and ethical standards.

About the Author:

This article is written by Tracy Leske. She is the Director of oceans2earth.org. It is a website of a non-political, non-religious organisation that provides opportunities for individuals to interact with people of diverse cultures. They offer amazing volunteering and adventure travel experiences for ethically minded animal and conservation lovers looking for the trip of a lifetime.