Change the fate of elephants in Thailand! You'll work hands-on with elephants, giving them lots of care, and also be helping to improve the living conditions of captive elephants in Thailand.

You'll be working with over 10 elephants, but you'll be surrounded by up to 200 elephants. The experience of being in the middle of such a huge number of these majestic creatures is awesome!

You'll work closely with mahouts, helping to change the practice of using elephants for street begging and circus shows to providing an alternative for their elephants that is more natural, less stressful, and is sustainable.
 

►SUMMARY FACTFILE
Start Dates	This project is available all year round. Projects start on Mondays. You choose your start and finish dates!
Duration	1 or 2 weeks.
Requirements	No specific requirements, just a love of animals and a desire to help them, enthusiasm and initiative.
Price	£475 / US $715 for 1 week £775 / US $1,165 for 2 weeks Can be done either before or after your main project.  Full Price List and other Currencies
What's included	►Accommodation ►Food ►Meeting you at the Airport ►Transfer to the project and back to Bangkok ►Full pre-departure support ►Local in-country  support and backup ►24-hr emergency support
What's not included	Flights, Insurance, Cost of Visas (if a visa is required, but we'll provide necessary documents and assistance).
Who can do this Project?	All projects are open to all nationalities. You need to be aged between 17 and 70+

PROJECT OVERVIEW
You'll be working with over 10 elephants, but you'll be surrounded by up to 200 elephants. The experience of being in the middle of such a huge number of these majestic creatures is awesome!

Each day that you are on this project supporting the elephants means that that the elephants have a day and a brighter future.  By being there, looking after it, caring for it, bathing it in the river and taking it out on walks, you have an enormous effect on the elephant's daily quality of life. You'll also help plant food for the elephants and work on various other projects that directly help the elephants.

WORK CONTENT:
Your normal daily routine will start with walking to the work site - which is surrounded by hundreds of elephants! An awesome start to the day. During your work, elephants will be allowed to freely interact socially and you'll participate in basic elephant care.

• You'll feed the elephants and generally have lots of hands-on work with them. Elephants love people and they love social interaction. They can be very playful.

• You'll normally help to take the elephants out on walks with the mahouts about twice a day across the local rice fields and forests.

• The elephants love the water so you will normally take the elephants down to the local reservoir for clean up. This is not only great fun, the elephants love it too!

• You'll be helping to build a new Elephant Sanctuary. There is a lot of diverse work involved in this, including helping to restore the natural habitat that has been destroyed by over-logging. Thus, you'll also help by planting grass and other vegetation that helps to feed the elephants.

• You'll be asked to take on some community development work, not only to help strengthen ties within the local community but also to learn from them in the process.

• Other duties could involve helping to cut the grass and preparing other elephant foods, as well as actually feeding the elephants.

During the project you will have plenty of opportunities to learn about the elephants and the local communities and how they are trying to become ever more stainable with local resources, like making paper out of elephant dung!

Got any questions? Please email us: info@travellersworldwide.com

WHAT YOU'LL GAIN FROM DOING THIS PROJECT:

• An exciting, never-to-be-forgotten adventure into Asia and Thai culture.

• The enormous satisfaction of directly helping to improve the quality of life of elephants by working hands-on with them, and knowing that you made a difference to them.

• New skills, more confidence, a greater understanding of a different culture, invaluable personal and professional development.

• An entry on your CV or résumé that will put you head and shoulders above most others in the job market

• And best of all ... an unforgettable experience!

Why the Sanctuary Needs Volunteers:

1. The more volunteers who can help look after the elephants, the more elephants can be taken in and given a decent quality of life.
2. The funds raised from taking volunteers will also help to expand and develop a structure that can take in more and more of the displaced elephants. 
3. A few reasons one is for the money to help support the work they are doing and support the elephants and Mahouts.
4. Having volunteers gives the Mahouts a purpose to their days and an objective - helping the elephants. Volunteers help to engender a positive environment and experience for the Mahouts, which in turn gives them a pride in caring for the elephants and a purpose to their lives
5. Volunteers help the elephants! Like people, elephants are intelligent and love interaction. It stops them getting bored (and being chained up). Volunteers help to stimulate the elephants mentally and give them an interest, which is vital to the elephants' wellbeing.
6. The Sanctuary's goal is to goal is to establish sustainably managed elephant tourism. It hopes that the more people who see and learn about the importance of what they are doing, the more this will help bring more support to the region, the community and the elephants.

The impact that this project will have for elephant conservation is huge. There are over 300 elephants registered in the Surin province and the vast majority of them are trapped in the unfortunate trade of street begging ... and street begging reduces an elephant’s life expectancy by at least 50%. This project is helping to develop a sustainable elephant sanctuary. With your support, the goal is to establish sustainably managed alternatives to both street begging and to other forms of tourism, such as circuses and elephant rides.

The goal is to have families of elephants freely roaming in natural habitat and for their Mahouts (carers) to be provided with a steady income that will replace the income they currently derive from using the elephants for street begging. The Surin Government has already set aside over 2000 acres of land, enough to maintain a breeding population of 300 elephants, which is approximately 10% of the existing population of Asian elephants in captivity in Thailand. In Surin, we have a chance to change history – to save the Asian elephant from extinction and give them a life worth living for generations to come.

LOCATION:
Surin City is located approximately 7 hours drive North-East of Bangkok. This is part of the Isaan Region of North-Eastern Thailand, known for its‟ spicy and delicious food, farming traditions, and rural culture. Most people of Isaan speak one of several dialects of the Laos language, as well as Standard Thai, and often a local tribal language.

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Got any questions? Please email us:
info@travellersworldwide.com

Enhance your Programme with some exciting activities:

For anyone wanting to be surrounded by elephants this truly couldn't be a better project. You'll live on the site in wooden huts surrounded by elephants. One volunteer said that one of the elephants managed to get her trunk through the window and stole the volunteer's hand cream (Coconut flavour!) You'll live in home-stay accommodation within the centre and you'll usually be sharing your accommodation with another volunteer. Shared bathrooms with Western style toilets and Thai style bucket showers, but no hot water.

Volunteers will share 2 to a room or have their own room depending on availability, but each room is equipped with mosquito nets and a fan.

Accommodation is basic by most Western standards, but this is Thailand and you'll be expected to be open-minded and adapt as much as possible to village life.

An elephant checking out the accommodation!