Project Life
Volunteer with Indigenous Communities on Conservation Projects in Borneo

GVI aims to assist the initiative to make significant progress with their project, making this an extremely exciting partnership. The project is dynamic and constantly changing, and volunteer work will be varied. There will be times volunteers will be required to help the core team with the general maintenance of facilities and equipment (helping with the boat repair, for example), and at other times volunteers will be required to support community social work (helping with rubbish clean-ups, for example). As the infrastructure of the area improves and more facilities are built, there will be new challenges to undertake. The core project work involves supporting and developing the ecotourism products, which includes trail building, signage, interpretation displays, construction work, landscaping work, hauling construction materials and teaching English or other languages.

Though a small and independent community-based organisation, it is very impressive and the product rivals bigger commercial operators, proving that community projects are not only be viable but are also competitive at the highest level. Tasks could also include tree planting in degraded forest or other direct hands-on conservation work, and while this is tough work it provides the opportunity to get volunteers out into the rainforest and amongst the very wildlife that they are working towards saving.

Sample one week itinerary: