Affordable Volunteer Opportunities Abroad
Africa, Latin America, Asia

Our volunteers serve at a picturesque elephant camp roughly 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Chiang Mai city. The camp is surrounded by mountains and is split down the middle with a small river. Volunteers assist and work alongside elephant trainers and other park staff from 7:00am – 4:00 pm (Monday – Friday). The camp has been open for 20 years, has over 70 elephants and roughly 250 workers. Many of the workers are of minority, ethnic, hill tribe decent.

Volunteers will help in bathing and feeding the elephants, moving food and supplies, teaching English to the elephant trainers and other staff, working with the staff’s children and local students. Additionally, volunteers will have a chance to work with the elephants and elephant trainers on how to care for the elephants. The camp has many day visitors. Once a volunteer has spent a decent amount of time at the camp, the volunteer may be asked to help explain and go through the different safety precautions the camp has for its day visitors.

Minimum Program Length: 2 weeks
Start Date: 1st and 3rd Monday of every month
Arrival Date: 3 days prior to your Start Date (Friday)
Minimum Age: 18 years old
Volunteer Gender: Male and Female

Accommodation:
All volunteers will have private accommodation at the camp Monday - Friday. Rooms at the camp are new, nicely designed, but basic. All rooms have an attached bathroom with western style toilet and a hot water shower. Weekends are free time for the volunteers. Volunteers are welcome to stay at the Volunteer Visions House if space is available. If room is not available at the Volunteer Visions House during a weekend, volunteers will have to cover the cost of their own accommodation for those two days. Volunteer Visions will be more than happy to provide volunteers with contact information for all types of hotels and guesthouses in the Chiang Mai area.

Food:
Three meals a day will be provided during service at the elephant camp. Breakfast and lunch will be provided during the two day pre-service orientation. Volunteers will not have meals provided for them on Saturday and Sunday during their service.

Pick-up Info:
A Volunteer Visions representative will be waiting for you at your arrival point and guide you to your accommodation and project location.

Project Schedule:
Volunteers will be working from 8:00 – 4:00pm Monday through Friday. Volunteers may occasionally be asked to work on the weekends and in the evenings during special occasions and activities.

Suggested Donations
Books and school supplies would be gladly appreciated for the small village school near the camp.

The day starts early at the elephant camp. Seven o’clock is bath time, followed by breakfast for the elephants. Once the elephants are fed and before day visitors make their arrival is the time that volunteers and other staff can sit down, have breakfast and enjoy a cup of northern Thai coffee. Volunteers may help with direction and safety procedures with the day tourists upon their arrival. After lunch is when all volunteers will work with the elephants and learn how to be a “mahout” – the Thai word for an elephant trainer.

Later in the afternoon volunteers will be broken up into different tasks. The elephant camp is big and has a very large staff. It’s almost a community of its own. Everyone living in the surrounding village is either staff or a family member of a staff person at the park. Therefore volunteers will be asked to help out and work with the families and children of the park’s workers. Some volunteers will teach an hour or two of English at the local hill tribe school. Other volunteers will stay at the camp and teach English to the elephant trainers and other staff. Other tasks may come up during a volunteer’s service, that volunteers will be asked to assist with.

Before working directly with the elephants, all volunteers will go through a three day safety course at the camp. During those three days, volunteers may take part in some of the teaching and other roles that they may be involved with later. Elephants are gentle creatures, but are incredibly big and strong. Safety is of the utmost importance, to insure nobody gets hurt during their volunteer service.

Suggested Skills and Interests

Suggested Language Level

All our volunteers are placed within the northern city of Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a lovely city, surrounded by mountains and fertile rice paddies. Chiang Mai is Thailand’s second largest city with a population of roughly 700,000. The city is considered the cultural and physical capital of (what used to be) the northern Thai (Lanna) kingdom. Chiang Mai is the home of an international airport, restaurants of almost every cuisine, unbelievable shopping, seven universities and world class hospitals.

The elephant camp is 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Chiang Mai city. The last few miles of the road are a bit bumpy. The trip from town to the camp usually takes roughly an hour.

Local Activities and Excursions

Besides temple gazing at Chiang Mai’s more than 300 Buddhist temples (wat); there are many different optional activities that volunteers are encouraged to take part in during breaks or after completion of their volunteer service to increase their travel experience and knowledge of Thailand. All courses and activities use English as the medium of communication. If a volunteer is interested in taking part in one of the activities listed below, make note of this in your volunteer application so arrangements can be made prior to arrival.

Thai cooking courses

All courses consist of a student to instructor ratio of nine to one, or less. The course programs allow for at least five different traditional Thai dishes made per lesson. All courses are located in Chiang Mai. Courses are six hours long and consist of a local market tour by the instructors to purchase the ingredients for the course. Volunteer Visions will organize an optional Thai cooking course for an additional fee of:

• One day course: $35.00
• Two day course: $62.00

Thai Massage Courses

The owner of the massage school is a very kind woman who appreciates the service our volunteers do in Thailand. For that reason she has gives our volunteers discounted prices, which are listed below.

The one day courses are offered on Saturdays and can be studied on weekends or holidays during volunteer service. Volunteer Visions will organize an optional after service, or during service weekend massage course for an additional program fee of:

• $45.00 – Basics of Thai body massage- 1 day (6 hours total).
• $42.00 – Traditional Thai Body Balancing Exercise- 1 day (6 hours total).

The longer 2-10 day massage courses can be studied during a holiday (3 day) weekend or after the volunteer has completed their volunteer service. Volunteer Visions will organize an optional after service massage course for volunteers for an additional program fee of:

• $80.00 – Foot massage- 2 days (12 hours total).
• $70.00 – Oil massage- 2 days (12 hours total).
• $110.00 - Thai massage- 3 days (18 hours total).
• $140.00 – Thai massage- 10 days (60 hours total).

* Please note that the Thai massage school that offers our volunteers the discounted prices listed above is closed on Sundays.

* After a day of service, Volunteer Visions will be happy to point volunteers in the right direction to where they can receive an incredible one hour Thai massage for roughly six dollars!

Jungle Treks

Jungle treks allow volunteers, especially those who have service sites in a city, to experience more of Thailand’s nature. There are a few different jungle treks to choose from. All treks are all-inclusive (including food and lodging) for the time the volunteer is on the trek. Most treks include stops in remote hill tribe villages, rafts and elephant training areas. Volunteer Visions will organize an optional jungle trek, after service, for an additional program fee of:

• $40.00 - 2 days/1 night
• $55.00 – 3 days/2 nights

Please note that occasionally, due to weather, holidays, timing of service programs and secondary activities, some activities maybe canceled, or unavailable at the time a volunteer would like to participate. If this occurs a full refund of the additional program fee will be given to the volunteer before they complete their volunteer experience, or the activity will be rescheduled for another time when the volunteer is able to participate.