Volunteer with your family to conserve elephants in Cambodia
This Elephant sanctuary was created to make a home for injured and overworked elephants in Mondulkiri, Cambodia. It currently looks after and cares for eleven elephants that are retired from working, and now roam free within the 1,500 hectares of natural jungle habitat. The vast amount of space allows the elephants to roam and escape from human activity during most of the day. In exchange for retiring their elephants, the owners receive a monthly compensation. This way, the project supports the freedom and care of elephants, and also the local communities in providing work and protecting their natural resources.
Families are welcome to join our ethical elephant programme in Cambodia to learn and about support their well being – for this reason, no riding, feeding or swimming with elephants takes place, but you will be able to observe and watch the elephants from a distance.
A typical 1 week placement at the Family Elephant Volunteer Project
The first couple of days are an induction, learning about the project, meeting the different families of elephants and learning about the forest, community, conservation and the elephants themselves. The rest of the time you will combine elephant observation, learn the basics of elephant health and welfare, contribute with a few volunteering sessions and join a jungle trek into the forest! The one week programme starts at 3pm on Sunday afternoon through to Friday 5.30pm, and includes final Friday night accommodation in town. There are options to join for 2 weeks or longer, please enquire if you and your family are interested.
You will leave the programme understanding more about Asian elephants, their health and wellbeing and become a true advocate for their conservation.
Families volunteering onsite, will learn about what it takes to run an elephant sanctuary! There may be other activities running whilst you are there, that you can join in as a family. For example, you may be able to join local staff to help out on our farms to grow supplementary food for the elephants (e.g. bananas and bamboo), or help in our reforestation project growing or help out with small construction and maintenance projects like trails, building bridges – all so the project continues to develop as a facility for elephant care. We love to know in the application if any members of your family have any skills you think could help out on the programme, e.g. building, plumbing, horticulture, vets etc, so we can try and plan projects where we can utilise their skills. All projects are dependent on the time of year e.g. rainy & dry season and the jobs that are required to be completed onsite that month.
A typical day at the project begins at 7 AM with breakfast, and around 8 AM volunteers will either head out to visit the elephants or get into some volunteer work. The structure of the days can vary depending on staffing and short-term visitor numbers. Lunch is served daily and the lunch breaks are long with plenty of time to read or have a nap in a hammock. Following lunch, volunteers will either go out to see elephants or do volunteer activities depending on the schedule. The days end in the late afternoon from which time volunteers are free, with dinner served around 6:30 PM.
Families with children of all ages are most welcome to join. Many families opt to do this as part of their own holiday in Cambodia, where you will join in on our family programme from Monday to Friday night (with overnight accommodation in town provided). So the ideal would be to arrive Sunday before latest and leave Saturday after earliest.
Our sanctuary is a beautiful 1500 hectare piece of forest where the elephants then live in their natural habitat. A day at the project can involve up to 8 km of walking, depending on where in the forest the elephants are located and what they get up to. Each day is very different. Therefore a moderate level of fitness is required for a visit to the project. The terrain can be quite hilly at times as you will be walking in a natural forest environment. It can also get slippery during the rainy season so sturdy footwear is required. But if your kids are good hikers then it should be ok, as long as you are aware if for example the youngest gets a bit tired then you may have to carry them! The other activities we offer at the sanctuary can be adapted to kids too. We have had many families on the project and most kids get a lot out of the programme. And if they get too tired, they can also just relax in the lounge and the base camp where we have plenty of space, games and beautiful view.