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Advantages of Animal Volunteer Program

Author: Tracy Leske
by Tracy Leske
Posted: Oct 14, 2015

Volunteering to care for, rescue and/or rehabilitate animals in faraway places like Thailand, Mexico, and even Kenya can bring adventure and a sense of pride to your life. Being away from home and working as an animal volunteer takes you from your comfort zone, teaches life skills, and broadens your knowledge about what is happening around the world. These experiences challenge your boundaries and change your way of thinking so after a few weeks on a project, people rethink their lives and their views and can move on with a heightened sense of what is important to them.

Animal volunteer programs have been known to enhance a person’s work ethic and increase their level of global responsibility, as well as teaching them to be patient, understanding and tolerant of people of various cultures and personalities. For many, it brings about a sense of leadership and accountability, and it can catapult them into a new world where they find themselves fighting for animals, their environment and global sustainability.

Here are some of the advantages of contributing to an animal volunteer program:

  • Exposure to new, stimulating contexts and situations
  • See the world through the eyes of a local by immersing yourself in a wildlife community
  • Open your eyes to animal welfare, environment and wildlife community challenges
  • Development of transferrable skills
  • Opportunities for team-building
  • Researching, planning and learning about new countries, animals and cultures
  • Improvement of career prospects
  • Confidence and self-esteem building
  • Priority and goal setting (life, lifestyle and career planning)
  • Doing fun things (some programs provide opportunities for volunteers to experience white water rafting, canoeing, bungee jumping, quad biking, fishing, etc.)

Experience Out of the Way Places

Are you interested in experiencing Australia, Ecuador, Mexico, Kenya, Thailand, or even the Galapagos Islands as a local? As a volunteer with Oceans 2 Earth Volunteers, you will head out of the city and the usual tourist spots to some of the most picturesque sceneries you will ever encounter. Depending upon where you go, you will get exposed to natural beauties, lush jungles, savannas, forests, never-ending stretches of white sand beaches and warm waters.

Experience Rich Cultures beyond Your Own

It may be easy to develop cultural myopia if you don’t move out of your comfort zone and actively seek to experience the colorful traditions of counties beyond yours. Why not become an animal volunteer in Kenya and dance to their music? Volunteer to care for elephants in Thailand and taste some of Southeast Asia’s best street food at the same time? Have you ever bottle fed a koala or kangaroo? If your volunteer program is expertly run and deeply involved with local communities, you will be immersed in an entirely new world and develop a unique and complex worldview—all while you indulge your passion for helping animals.

Improve Your Career Prospects

Spending some time being an animal volunteer overseas shows future employers that you are compassionate, independent, free-thinking, caring and willing to consider animals, a quality that many admire. Not all people are comfortable volunteering, especially overseas, and spending some time experiencing life from a different angle can make for a well-rounded and worldly individual. Volunteering can simple make you stand out, and so you should! You have done the hard yards! For those interested in a career in development or animal welfare, you will need hands on experience? An animal volunteer-internship is a fantastic stepping stone that gives you relevant experience and the chance to network with people and NGOs in the field.

About the Author:

This article is written by Tracy Leske. She is the Director of Oceans2earth.org. It is a website of a non-political, non-religious organisation that provides opportunities for individuals to interact with people of diverse cultures. They offer amazing volunteering and adventure travel experiences for ethically minded animal and conservation lovers looking for the trip of a lifetime.

About the Author

This article is written by Josephine Kent, Marketing Coordinator of Oceans 2 Earth Volunteers, an organization that provides opportunities for volunteers to work with animals on a variety of animal.

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Author: Tracy Leske

Tracy Leske

Member since: Jul 13, 2015
Published articles: 14

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