Ecoteer

Ecoteer article in The Star newspaper!

The Star newspaper is one of the main daily newspaper read in Malaysia and today on the 17th of January 2012, an article on Ecoteer was published! Of course quite an amount of effort was put in to have this article published in a quite glorious manner.

Our two full paged article appeared in the Star 2 section paged 2 and 3 of this newspaper and hopefully it looks attractive and would inspire local and foreign tourist to opt for a low environmental impact holiday. The article included an introduction on how Ecoteer was found by Daniel Quilter, followed by the concept of Ecoteer and how this concept of volunteering while holidaying is quite foreign to Malaysian tourist.

The article also included some background stories about the community & conservation program and turtle conservation project in the lovely tropical island of Perhentians as well as the English project located in the palm oil estates of Sukau, Sabah.

Read the original article in The Star Online: Ecoteer – Vacation with a difference

Want to know more about green traveling and responsible volunteering? Find out more at Ecoteer: Travel With A Cause or drop us an email to inquire more about our projects at contact@ecoteer.com.

Volunteering with charities in Africa

For many, the blessing of good fortune can only be topped by the ability and opportunity to use that fortune to inspire hope in others in great need. Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, and much of the rest of Africa are fraught with these meaningful pursuits, with hundreds of volunteering and charity work opportunities available. Volunteering is an enriching experience both for the volunteer as well as for those they benefit, and it also adds a greater element of authenticity to the travel experience. So take the leap and browse for cheap flights while considering the following promising opportunities for your volunteer experience.

Not unlike many of its African neighbours, an astounding number of Kenya’s children are left without parents because of HIV, AIDS, and malnourishment. With over 70 per cent of the population under 30 years of age, these detriments have compounded effects on children who must fend for themselves, raise their siblings, and go without education. As a volunteer, you will gladly be accepted into any of a number of programs to rebuild communities, educate and counsel children, apply immunisations, and clean up the environment. While all it takes is a little determination to participate, a briefing on the distinct cultural practices of the Masai Mara and Kenyans in general will go a long way.

One of the most culturally and historically rich countries in West Africa, Ghana’s inhabitants depend largely on agriculture for sustenance. Establishing a sound familial structure, then, is essential for farms to remain in operation and keep crop yields high. When the parents are no longer in the picture, volunteers are called on to help educate children on how to plant, water, and harvest crops so that they can reap a liveable profit and become self-sufficient.

Whether the assignment is in Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, or anywhere else, volunteers are empowered with an entire slew of rewarding benefits and the experience of a lifetime. Besides the assistance they bring to the community, volunteers in Africa help develop and support an advanced global perspective, creating a higher level of consciousness for the entire world. Volunteers are rewarded by the immense gratification from the work itself and the opportunity to serve as an agent of change both in Africa and on the home front. As volunteers will attest, all the rhetoric in the world couldn’t capture how it truly feels to save lives and inspire hope in others. As an added benefit, the cultural insight gained from a volunteering experience in Africa helps to understand and appreciate the reasons why people do what they do.

To be a part of this important transaction of resources and hope, search for flights to Africa, show up, and make a difference. The rest will return to you tenfold.

Search the Ecoteer.com website to find your perfect volunteering project in Africa.

Pavin looks back

Below is an excerpt from a blog which Pavin the ‘awesome’ Ecoteer House village facilitator wrote after he had left the Islands.  The islands touch many with no exception.

It is weird …
I look out of the window and I don’t see the clear ocean no more
Instead , I’m overwhelmed with the sight of buildings and the ever deafening vehicles
I see people walking on the streets with an obsession to a fast paced society
I wonder what is going through their heads right now
They don’t look at ease but they sure are walking it

I miss the hills that stood high on the island
The mist that subsides at dawn
And the bats that used to fly narrowly missing my face
The locals who walked by greeting me
As I sat there smoking on my bright blue porch

One season passed and many friends made
Memories that one would cherish
But could never chase
Grab your snorkels to the tide that we embrace

I now sit humbly on the corner of my bed
Fuck me , the world is getting smaller
But time seems to be pacing
Dare to dream and dare to live
Are you in a rush to get somewhere
Why do we even bother

It’s been a good run of faith and dedication
Snap back in the real world
Kickin’ it like a rock and rolla
Dreams are made for a reason
And the reason is nothing but a bare self confession

The Ecoteer House Project is based in the Perhentian Islands in Malaysia.  The project aims to conserve through education be it the diverse marine environment or the  Malay culture.  To find out more about the Ecoteer House Project please go to www.ecoteerresponsibletravel.com.

Follow Pavin’s rock and roll life by reading his blog at Trippy and Twisted.  He is currently building his own Eco adventure Park in Ipoh, Malaysia.  Good luck Pavin we are all behind you 200%!!!

Community development in India

Mitraniketan community, established in the year 1956 as a non-profit organization working for the development of children, youth, women and farmers. It is located in a 60 acre campus and is 25 km away from Trivandrum city, in South India. Education of tribal children through a Residential school is the core of Mitraniketan which imparts formal and non-formal education. Volunteers from abroad participate in these education programs along with local teachers in creative arts, craft education, sports, English in addition to conventional education.

Rural youth are empowered through life and livelihood skill development programmes in a Danish Folk High School model institution called People’s college. The work based learning helps the students to be more active part in the learning process and also gives opportunities for volunteers to work with them. Agriculture, pottery, sports, computer, carpentry and creative arts are some of the subjects in which Mitraniketan use volunteer service/skills.

The Farm Science Center (KVK) and Rural Technology Centre (RTC) of Mitraniketan cater the training needs of small farmers and artisans which concentrate on organic farming, mushroom cultivation, pottery and carpentry. The 600 member community also houses a floating population of volunteers who serve and use the facilities for learning by participating in the community activities like sports, yoga, music, technical skill training, health care activities and technology development.

Progress of society through the total development of individuals is the mission of the institution, for which local staff, part time workers, volunteers and visiting faculties strive together in a participatory manner.

Are you interested in volunteering with us? visit our Ecoteer page at Volunteer India

For other volunteer opportunities in India visit Volunteer in India with Ecoteer

For low cost volunteering in Asia go to volunteer in Asia

Making a difference at Uma Nivas

Although Uma Nivas has had a fairly quiet year so far with only six volunteers to date, Emma and Nuria and Sally and her family, lots is going on. The children’s English is coming on by leaps and bounds and after meeting our volunteers, the children are really motivated to learn to speak English, not just read and write in the usual Indian style. Even Sally’s children, aged 9 and 11, helped teach English, as well as how to play the musical instruments they had brought with them and a host of British games.

We have used the funds Sally and her team of volunteers fundraised last year to cover the high school garden with new topsoil and put water tanks on the roof. So now gardening has started in a big way. Lots of fruit and vegetables are coming up and we are well on the way to self-sufficiency. We also took over one of the two broken vehicles belonging to the orphanage, repaired it, got it working and have built a garage to keep it in. As a vehicle is a lifeline in remote villages, where public transportation is almost nil, this is no small achievement.

Didi Vratiisha has also been very active in other areas too, holding homeopathic medical clinics at different villages 6 days of the week. The clinics are always packed, and Didi is kept very busy, all this on top of her duty as high school principal.

Tatayara School, located in a village around an hour from the Uma Nivas project, used to run in a broken down building with many of the children studying outside in the open air under trees and some of them actually sitting on the dusty street. Now thanks to the tireless efforts of our volunteers, Denise, her children and her friends, who put on a pantomime called Dracula back in the UK, there is a beautiful school building with 5 rooms for the children to study in. The roof is finished, so all 200 children have now moved into the school, although the plastering and doors and windows are not yet complete. Fantastic work, Denise! Thank you all so much! And Denise just now told me that they have raised the funds for the doors and windows. Incredible!

There are so many ways to help. You can go out there and get your hands dirty helping with the garden. You can teach English and a whole range of other skills, you can help treating patients if you’re a doctor, or you can simply play games with the kids. If you prefer to do something from home, you are most welcome to help us fundraise.

As you will realize, a little here can make a big difference over there….Together we can give these kids a better, brighter future.

If you would like to know more about our volunteering opportunities please go to our Ecoteer page at VOLUNTEER IN INDIA

2010 Volunteers Impacts on Community projects – Kenya

We are proud to have made some positive impacts through our eye-opening volunteer program to local grassroots projects.

As the year 2010 winds up and we look forward to greater achievements, we have significantly changed the lives of both the local communities and volunteers as stated by one of our community project member:

“Volunteers have awakened a new sense of pride to our initiatives in the small forgotten villages of the world, it is a spirit to be upheld” Ann Anam – Uhanga education water and sanitation project, Nyanza Province – Kenya.

Indeed, this is a spirit to be cherished and honoured just like those who have volunteered would testify. There are many other sentiments echoed by volunteers and the communities, such as appreciation, pride, and openness to other cultures… This appreciation and hope calls for the continuation of our programs for the benefit of the local people.

In this Year 2010, we have worked with more than 10 different community projects in Kenya dealing with environmental and wildlife conservation, humanitarian, teaching and healthcare.

In these projects, we have been able to get over 200 international volunteer applicants from all over the world. And this has helped the communities to take the projects to the next level, for the benefit of the whole community, through implementation of ideas shared by the volunteers, skills input and physical labour.

All in all, there is still a lot to be done and many community initiatives to be uplifted. We thus hope that Year 2011 will bring more smiles to volunteer’s faces and thumbs up developmental steps to the community projects we support. We appreciate the efforts that have been put in by our partners, such as Ecoteer, which makes it easier for volunteers to find suitable placements. We also want to thank all the volunteers who have offered their time and energy to community projects. And we welcome any goodwill among the young people around the world, who want to make a difference in development and will thus discover more about themselves.

Thank You for reading,

Please visit our Ecoteer placement page now

Volunteer Kenya

How our project is benefiting the local community

At the beginning

-Most local thai people and children cannot speak english.

-Some local people don’t know what benefit our centre can bring to the local community

Our project has been running now for 4 years and the local people and children can speak in english with our volunteers and the community are starting to see how they are benefitting from our volunteer centre.

How the children have improved their English

Before at the school and in the village (rural schools in Thailand do not teach the children english) most of the students cannot read, write, speak and pronounce english. In the beginning the students cannot communicate with our volunteers our camp leaders (Thai volunteers) will always translate for them. But now our students can communicate and speak much better with the volunteers and even in some classes they do not need a camp leader to translate anymore. The children now know how to greet and talk with the volunteers and are no longer shy as they were before.

Success with our community farming

The volunteers help to raise fish and chickens. They also help us to grow organic vegetables (no chemicals) which are used in the camp making our project more self sustainable.  We also plant Galanga and can now send them to be sold at the market.  We have just started to plant new baby rubber trees.

Our fruits tree are growing up very fast and we have already got fresh fruits ready to eat.

The volunteers have finished building our new chicken house.

Other progress

Our volunteers and local people get on well and enjoy exchanging their experiences, culture and language.

We are helping the local school and community by supplying support teaching materials such as textbooks, pencils, colouring pencils and more.

We are starting to support the disabled, blind and old.  People with disabilities are not well looked after in Thailand. And are also supporting traditional activities (such as Children day, Songkhran festival, merit ceremony) in the village and community.

Our environmental programs in the villages are another success we collect the garbage (at the temple, school, beach, waterfall) and plant trees near the street, temple, school and other public places. We always ask the local community to join in when we do these activities.

We have alot of work still to do and we need some more help from volunteers.  Inparticular we need help at the schools, teaching the children English.  We are connected with 10 schools and we dont have enough volunteers to support all of them. Secondly we need volunteers for help with our farming, agriculture and environmental awareness projects like recycling and tree planting so we hope in future we can welcome more volunteers to our centre.

To find out more information please go to our Ecoteer page below

Volunteer Thailand

What Ecoteer volunteers get up to in India

In 2009/2010, we had a total of 15 volunteers at our rural development project in
the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, some 120 miles east of Delhi.  They included
three L.S.E. graduates, a nurse from the U.S.A., a computer scientist from Canada, a
language and media teacher from Germany, a high school graduate from Norway, a
mental health nurse from Barbados and a marketing manager from Spain as well as
six others from the U.K. – in other words, a very cosmopolitan mix. They all
enjoyed their stay and four of them, who live in or near London, joined our
executive committee on their return and are now trustees.

These volunteers did a range of activities while in the project. Two of the L.S.E.      graduates undertook a research project into the pollution of the countryside caused by a large paper mill that was set up in the area fifteen years ago. The third looked into the financial viability of running a computer course for local villagers and students.  Anita, whose particular interest is photography, took many excellent photos for us during her stay. She also assisted with the teaching of English in the project primary school.  Teaching English to the primary schools students is an activity that is always available to volunteers and visitors. Our volunteers also worked hard to stimulate the village children whose parents are often illiterate. They organised simple games, songs and art projects which the children loved.

There were also opportunities to teach Conversational English to older students who are studying in the degree college in the village. This is an important part of their education. Without a reasonable knowledge of English, villagers cannot compete for jobs against townspeople. The project’s aim is to bring the modern resources and facilities of the towns and cities to the villages.

During the year, we also had return visits from three people who had volunteered with us several years ago.

To find out more about our project please visit our Ecoteer page at Volunteer in India

Agro-ecological farm in Costa Rica

Our agroecological farm is located in San Isidro de El General, Costa Rica, near Dominical Beach. We are an Environmental and Conservation Project, or “School Farm,” with education as our top priority. At our farm, students, volunteers, and visitors can participate, learn and help.

We receive volunteers, students, and environmental interns locally and from abroad. Primarily we work with volunteer group organizations that are interested in environmental education, however all are welcome at our farm, from individuals up to large groups.

We are very interested in welcoming volunteers from your school, organization, or program and would encourage you to visit our Ecoteer page, volunteer farm Costa Rica for more information. There you will find a detailed description of our grass roots campaign and a summary of the numerous projects we are currently working on. Please feel free to share our mission and information with your friends, family, and co-workers to help us continue our environmental education. In addition to working at our farm, we also encourage our guests to visit the local sites including Dominical and Uvita Beach and Hot Springs and we are more than happy to organize guided tours.

We offer ideal opportunities for graduate students and researchers to extend knowledge, pursue specific interests, find field work or extend opportunities for thesis material. Undergraduate students who wish to pursue a career in conservation often need volunteer work and hands-on experience as a prerequisite. This experience is an excellent way to verify an interest in a specific field. We provide excellent opportunities for gaining experience and making contacts at the outset of a professional career in conservation. In addition, students with families are always welcome as we began as a family farm.

Our family believes the best way to preserve our Planet Earth is for everyone to become active and lend a helping hand to Mother Nature. We currently have major challenges, including green house gasses and global warming, ever expanding landfills, pesticides in our fruit, vegetables, and meat, and shortages of suitable drinking water to name a few. No matter what town, country or continent you live on, we must all live together under the same sun during the day and the stars and moon at night. If we all recognized the issues and started to change one bad habit at a time it would have an enormous effect on the planet immediately, but we all must work together. So start today and join us in our mission to change our planets course and educate future generations.

Thank you for your time and consideration from the Villalobos family and we look forward to hearing from you.

Teaching english in Borneo

Its now been a few weeks since the return of pioneer volunteers, Donna Barlow, Arsalan Naeem and Jody Lee from the isolated schools of Sabah.  The volunteers certainly had an experience not to be forgotten from large spiders hiding in toilets to encountering herds of elephants whilst on night river cruises.

The volunteers first school was at Tomanggong palm oil plantation which is near  Tabin wildlife reserve.  The schools are very isolated and are a 2 hour 4×4 journey  away from the nearest town Lahad Datu.  But saying that the plantation has all what  you need including a small bar and badminton courts but phone signal is low which  is great.  The volunteers helped at the small school (60 children) run by Judith and  Ardana.  The children raise the Malaysian flag and sing songs including the Humana  song each morning.  The children were preparing for a competition at the end of  July where they would compete against 20 other schools in events such as football,  tyre rolling, volleyball, singing and dancing to name a few.  Each afternoon the  volunteers helped the children to practice for these events with Arsalan being the  football coach.  The housing the volunteers stayed in had been abandoned for a  while and many new squatters had taken residence in the house.  One day, Arsalan went to the toilet and to his astonishment when he stood up a HUGE spider was sat in the toilet bowl looking up at him! HELLO.  The plantation and surrounding forests are FULL of creepy crawlies and a nice dry cool house is very appealing for these critters.  Not all the animals living in the surrounding forest are all that creepy.  The plantation backs onto Tabin Wildlife Reserve which is home to Pygmy elephants, Sumatran rhino’s and orangutans.  On one of routes out of the plantation goes pass Tabin reserve and if you are lucky you can see these creatures crossing the road – Arsalan and Jody saw a few herds of elephants.  The weekend event soon came with the Tomanggong team ready and willing to take on the other schools!  After a non eventful journey to the event location the children of Tomanggong won all but 1 event!  With Arsalan’s football team not losing a single game.  The journey back was somewhat more eventful with tires bursting and heavy rains swelling rivers but after 7 hours and very wet clothes everyone made it safely back to Tomanggong.

The second month was based at Melangking which is just 15km from Sukau village which is the  centre of river cruises to see various wildlife including orangutans, elephants, hornbills,  crocodiles and even sun bears.  The plantation has three schools with between 20 to 40 children  going to each school. The children are again well behaved but it is obvious the children lack  confidence in speaking and writing english and their environmental awareness is very low.    Donna an orangutan and nature lover found her place at Melangking and started a recycling  scheme at all three schools at this plantation.  Teaching is not the only thing the volunteers  experienced here!  Have you ever seen male chickens’, cockerels wearing boxing gloves???  Well  one day the volunteers look out their window only to see two cockerels fighting with small  gloves on their claws.  These cockerels were practicing for cock fights which are illegal but are  run at all villagers throughout Borneo especially after pay day.  You never know what you may  see.  Being in the plantation is one experience not to be forgotten.

I personally would like to say a big THANK YOU to the Borneo Child Aid Society (BCAS), the two plam oil estates (Melangking and Tomanggong), Judith, Nesta, Junecel, Torben,  Mr Chee and Mr Wong and of course the three brave pioneer volunteers – Arsalan, Donna and Jody.

Ecoteer are now working with BCAS on a permanent volunteer program focusing on improving the English skills and environmental awareness of the children of the Palm Oil estates.  The program is starting on January 3^rd 2011 at Melangking estate and hopefully in the future we will be able to host volunteers at Tomanggong and other estates in the future.

We hope this is the start of helping not only the children but the wildlife living in the rainforests surrounding the palm oil estates of Sabah.

For more information on the new volunteer program please go to teach english in Borneo

For information on other volunteering opportunities go to the following pages

Volunteer borneo

volunteer malaysia

volunteer asia

Volunteer Abroad