Natucate
Volunteering: Notes and requirements for our volunteer projects
This blog article provides you with an overview of the personal and formal requirements that each participant of a volunteer project should fulfil.
Volunteer projects tend to attract young people who want to make good use of their time between finishing school and going to university. However, older volunteers are showing more and more interest in active holidays.
Some are looking to take a break from work in the form of a sabbatical or a new challenge while making a contribution to nature and species conservation efforts. Desk workers frequently want some physical activity to have a bit of variety.
Requirements
Personal requirements
We are responsible for having an application process which identifies suitable participants to join our project partners. Your motivation for taking part should not be simply to visit a beautiful destination for as little money as possible.
Instead, people who join the volunteer projects of Natucate must have a passion for nature, a love of animals, an affinity for the outdoors and an openness to the world.
You will also need a certain degree of tolerance and adaptability in order to deal with people who might, at least initially, seem quite strange to you.
It is important that you have a good level of English and can understand the instructions of your project manager.
A basic level of physical fitness is enough for most projects, but you will need a medical report providing details of your physical condition before you can go on projects which are particularly physically challenging.
Our code of conduct will let you know what we expect from you during your trip.
Formal requirements
- You must be at least 18 years old to join our projects. In some projects, for example our conservation project on North Island, the minimum age is 21. Only a small number of projects have an age limit.
- You must have a valid passport and appropriate travel health insurance.
- You will also need vaccinations and possibly a visa, depending on the country and region that you are going to.
- Some projects and require you to be a registered student or a graduate in a relevant field.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
Information on accommodation standards
Everybody interested in joining a volunteer project abroad should be able to adjust to entirely unfamiliar standards of living in their future host country. Therefore, we would like to point out the importance of being flexible and adaptable regarding the accommodation and sanitary facilities provided by the programme. Those are very basic and – depending on the project – cannot be compared to European standards.
The equipment and furnishings are limited to a minimum; air conditioning is not available. Depending on your host country occasional power blackouts or water outages are quite common. Please contact us if you have further questions about your accommodation. We are pleased to provide you with comprehensive information since we would like you to feel entirely prepared for your time abroad.
No animal sightings – no wildlife interaction
We realise that some of the people in our projects want to see as many animals as possible in their natural environment. However, this is dependent on a number of factors. Please note that Natucate makes no guarantee that you will see a variety of animals, in particular the big five, as nature doesn’t always give us what we want. To make such a guarantee would be unprofessional and against our corporate philosophy.
Furthermore, if you’re interested in joining one of our programmes, please note that none of them involve any direct interaction with wild animals. We are strongly against breeding young lions for canned hunting and have therefore signed the strict code of conduct of the organisation CACH (Campaign Against Canned Hunting). We can provide additional information, if required. To learn more about this subject, take a look at the following blog post:
Our trips: Animal sightings and wildlife interaction
Necessary equipment
You will be provided with project-specific equipment and material on-site. However, there are certain items which you should bring yourself. Depending on the project, these can include a raincoat, a backpack, insect spray, sunscreen, a hat, water bottles, hiking boots and work/hiking trousers. You might also need swimwear, a camping mat and a sleeping bag.
We will provide you with a list of things you should pack for your particular project before you set off.
Further details on volunteering can also be found in our Volunteer Abroad FAQ
