Elephant Conservation Volunteer Project, Sri Lanka

Project Costs 

The cost for 1 week is £811, 2 weeks is £1030, 3 weeks is £1335 and 4 weeks is £1507. It is then £155 for every extra week after 4 weeks. This covers all your food, water and accommodation at the project, project training and supervision and WorkingAbroad Projects backup and placement support and the return drop off to Kandy at the end of your project dates. As an intern, you can join from 3-6 months, and costs start at £3045 for 3 months. The taxi to your hotel on arrival are an additional cost, and the transfer from Heritage Ambepussa Hotel where you should stay for your first night, are an additional cost but on departure, volunteers get a free transfer to Kandy and any onward travel is at your own cost.  Pls note the Ambepussa Hotel is at your own cost.

Your airfare to and from Sri Lanka, travel/medical insurance, airport and hotel costs, visa fee and personal expenses are not included within this price. It is mandatory for you to take out travel and medical insurance for the duration of the project.

For more details on the costs for staying longer than 4 weeks, or if wanting to join as a family or group, then please contact us.

Payment Terms

To secure your placement on the project, please complete and submit the form with your application payment of £195. If for some reason, your application is not accepted, we will reimburse this payment fully. However, for those who are accepted, you will be required to pay the final balance 2 months before arrival. Once we have confirmed your place, you will receive an information package on the programme, the work you will do, suggested items to bring, how to travel there etc.

How are your funds used? 

The fees that volunteers/interns pay will cover any expenses related to their stay at the project (accommodation, food, water, etc). However, there’s more to conducting research and providing a safe environment for everyone on the project. To conduct fieldwork requires a fair amount of logistical support especially in areas such as our project site, where dangerous wild animals such as elephants, leopards, sloth bears, and buffalo range freely.  Ensuring the safety and security of volunteers and interns is a huge undertaking that is given the highest priority. There is always experienced staff personnel with them even when they are in the field house, the staff are always in the vicinity.  Providing a safe environment to conduct the work means it’s needed to provide 4WD vehicles, the necessary field equipment, as well as a large well-trained field staff to provide a safe volunteer/intern to staff ratio in the field.

The fee volunteers and interns pay gets allocated to cover all the projects and operations costs in the following way:  Accommodation (8%), Food (12%), Transport (18%) Staff costs (14%), Wildlife Conservation contribution (40%) and local community project fund donations (8%).

Project Dates

Please note that the dates below are flexible, and you can join the project starting on any Monday throughout the year. The minimum duration is 1 week and we would advise arrival on a Sunday (or at least one day before your start date)  for a Monday morning pickup from your hotel.