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Volunteering opportunities in Africa are on the increase, according to Jane Nijssen from Earthwatch Institute (Europe) based in the UK. “Africa is one of our most popular geographic destinations and we have a strong history of supporting projects there,” she says. “In 2008, we have 23 volunteering opportunities in Africa, ranging from studying lemurs in Madagascar, cheetahs in Namibia and coastal ecosystems in the Seychelles. For 2008 we have also launched a new volunteer expedition in Tanzania, saving the Tarangire migration [which focuses on the wildlife in Tarangire National Park].”
For many, the appeal of a volunteering placement in Africa is to get close to some of the continent’s stunning natural scenery and wildlife and many projects focus on the protection of some of its endangered species. Experience Quest, a UK-based organisation that offers volunteering opportunities in Africa and South America, has a number of wildlife-focused placements, including working in the game reserves of Swaziland, researching whale sharks and manta rays in Mozambique and rehabilitating injured and displaced wildlife in Malawi. However, in keeping with many volunteering organisations’ ethical stance, links with and projects involving the local people are also important.
“We work in partnership with grassroots projects overseas that we find through overseas contacts – we have been working with partners overseas for over 12 years,” says Jo Shuttleworth from Experience Quest.
Moya Cutts from Volunteer Africa in the UK says that they also work closely with local communities in order to ensure that their programmes have an entirely positive impact. “Projects are community-initiated by the local people,” she says. “Presently we offer two volunteer programmes, HAPA Rural Development Programme working in villages on community building projects and HAPO Orphans and Vulnerable Children Programme working with young people and their guardians to improve their independence.”
Cutts adds that local concerns are important when establishing new projects in Africa. “When approached to supply volunteers to a project in Africa, we would be considering the long-term impact and how worthwhile and sustainable any new volunteer programme would be for the local community,” she says.
When it comes to volunteering, organisations agree that there is no typical participant and the sector attracts a wide variety of applicants from an increasing range of countries. Claire Webber from Azafady, which sends volunteers to work on projects in Madagascar, says, “The majority of our volunteers are either students who are looking to gain experience of working with an NGO to support a future career in development or conservation, or they are people on a career break – professionals in their 20’s and 30’s who have worked for a few years and now want to ‘give something back’.”
Changing work and family patterns worldwide are certainly boosting applicant numbers for this type of travel opportunity, as Shuttleworth points out. “In the workplace, people change jobs far more frequently so people are more confident to take time out between changing jobs,” she says. “In society people are leaving it later to have families, creating a large gap between university and children, that can be filled with an additional pre-family gap year. Travel and countries worldwide have become far more accessible and easier to travel to, in some cases just travelling is not enough anymore – people want an experience too.”
Cutts notes that the average age of volunteers has been increasing of late as people taking a career break or those who have retired seek to “travel with a purpose”. She adds, “We now receive many applications from all over the world and from less developed countries. Many people want to see for themselves what Africa is like. The media has done a lot to raise the profile of Africa. We tend to get a surge of interest after events such as Live8.”
As the many volunteer organisations working in the African continent tend to have a charitable purpose, marketing their programmes to new markets is necessarily constrained by the available budget. The use of third party recruiters, therefore, tends to be low. Webber says, “As a registered charity, we have a very little marketing budget and it is always an ongoing struggle to find new marketing avenues. We rely a lot on the Internet and email marketing and building relationships with universities and their students. We were recently named best volunteering organisation at the 2007 responsible tourism awards and this has succeeded in raising our profile.”
However, there may be some opportunities for agents in this sector as long as volunteering organisations can safeguard their own ethical credentials. “The majority of our clients come by word-of-mouth,” says Shuttleworth. “The Internet is also key to marketing our products. We use a select few agents but do not allow our products to be white labelled [sold unbranded].”
VOLUNTEER PROFILE
Lisa Bass from the UK spent 10 weeks in Madagascar. She tells us about her experiences:
“There were hundreds of placements in Africa and after a while it was just too daunting to read through them all and try to choose one. So I decided to narrow it down by looking at a couple of countries and then finding a placement in one of these. Azafady came over as an organisation that was totally committed to working with communities so I signed up for their 10-week Pioneer programme. This programme takes volunteers from all over the world and the group does separate placements living and working in villages building wells, schools, doing some conservation work and working with the communities on sustainable livelihood projects. Azafady also organised opportunities to see other projects the charity were running and also to take trips out to the local parks and beaches so it meant you would be able to see some of the country rather than just be in one place for 10 weeks. I gained more from my time with people in Madagascar than I could ever possibly give them back. One month after I returned home I found myself giving in my notice at work and fundraising to go back to Madagascar for a year and work for Azafady”.
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