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Fantastic 4.54rating (29)
  • Life On Land

Care for 2,500 Rescued Street Dogs

location
1 - 20 weeks  ·  Age 17 - 50+
Verified

Highlights

  • Work at the largest animal care facility in Sri Lanka - around 2,500 rescued street dogs across two adjacent free-roaming sanctuary units.
  • Socialise puppies and adult dogs so they are comfortable around people, which is what makes them adoptable rather than permanent residents.
  • Support roughly 500 disabled dogs with their daily physical needs and with mental stimulation, alongside the resident carers.

Highlights

  • Work at the largest animal care facility in Sri Lanka - around 2,500 rescued street dogs across two adjacent free-roaming sanctuary units.
  • Socialise puppies and adult dogs so they are comfortable around people, which is what makes them adoptable rather than permanent residents.
  • Support roughly 500 disabled dogs with their daily physical needs and with mental stimulation, alongside the resident carers.
  • Work with a team of over 40 people including qualified vets, with an on-site veterinary clinic treating injuries and disease.
  • Understand what you are walking into: some of these dogs arrive starved, injured or abused, and not every one of them recovers.
    • You don't have to pay anything yet

    Especially good for

    Age 17+
    Singles
    Couples
    Groups
    50+

    About the program

    Work at Sri Lanka’s largest animal sanctuary, home to around 2,500 rescued street dogs, roughly 500 of them disabled, with an on-site vet clinic.

    There are somewhere around three million stray dogs in Sri Lanka. Most live on the street, many are malnourished or carrying untreated disease and injuries, and unspayed females produce several litters a year — puppies that are routinely abandoned at temple gates or shelter doors, too small to ...

    About the program

    There are somewhere around three million stray dogs in Sri Lanka. Most live on the street, many are malnourished or carrying untreated disease and injuries, and unspayed females produce several litters a year — puppies that are routinely abandoned at temple gates or shelter doors, too small to survive without help.

    This placement is at the response to that: the largest animal care facility in the country, home to roughly 2,500 dogs across two adjacent units of about 1,200 each. It is a free-roaming sanctuary rather than a kennel block, with an on-site veterinary clinic staffed by resident local vets, and a team of more than forty people — vets, carers and operations staff.

    Around 500 of the dogs are disabled.

    What you will actually be doing

    The core of it is socialisation, and it is more important than it sounds. A street dog that flinches from people cannot be rehomed. A dog that has learned humans are safe can be. Hours spent sitting with a nervous animal, walking it, handling it gently and repeatedly, are the difference between those two outcomes.

    Alongside that: feeding and daily care, cleaning and maintaining the units, helping with the disabled dogs' physical needs and giving them the mental stimulation that stops a life in a sanctuary becoming a life of boredom, and assisting the veterinary team where you are useful. Puppies need near-constant handling. Older and sicker dogs need patience.

    Be honest with yourself before you apply

    This is the part most listings leave out. You will meet dogs that arrived starved, with untreated wounds, or having been deliberately hurt. Some of them do not recover. If you love animals in a way that means you cannot be around suffering without being overwhelmed by it, this placement will be hard, and there is no shame in choosing a different one.

    Volunteers who do well here are the ones who can hold both things at once: that the situation is genuinely grim, and that the sanctuary is doing something real about it, and that a morning spent getting one frightened dog to accept a lead is a good morning's work.

    It is also, often, a joyful place. Two and a half thousand dogs mostly running loose in the sun is not a sombre scene.

    Practicalities

    No veterinary or animal-care qualification is required, though any you have will be used. You should be up to date with your tetanus vaccination and should talk to a travel clinic about rabies pre-exposure vaccination before you travel — you are working with street-rescued animals and that conversation is worth having properly.

    You need to be 17 or over. The work is physical and outdoors in a hot climate, so reasonable fitness helps.

    Typical day

    Saturday — Arrival. You are met at Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB) and taken down to Galle on the shared transfer. Check the timing before you book: there are two shared transfers each Saturday, morning and afternoon/evening, and arriving outside those windows means a private ...

    Typical day

    Saturday — Arrival. You are met at Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB) and taken down to Galle on the shared transfer. Check the timing before you book: there are two shared transfers each Saturday, morning and afternoon/evening, and arriving outside those windows means a private transfer at USD 100.

    Sunday — Settle in at the volunteer house in Unawatuna and meet the others.

    Monday — Orientation: welcome presentation, health and safety training, cultural briefing, a project-specific session on how the sanctuary works and how to handle the dogs safely, and a tour of the area.

    Tuesday to Friday — the working pattern:

    • Morning — Breakfast at the house, then the team drives you to the sanctuary by air-conditioned van or tuk tuk
    • At the sanctuary — Feeding and daily care, cleaning, socialisation work with individual dogs, time with the disabled units, and helping the veterinary team where needed
    • Afternoon — Usually back at the house. The heat dictates a good deal of the schedule here
    • Evening — Dinner at the house with the other volunteers

    Days vary more than on most placements, because they are driven by what has arrived at the sanctuary. An intake of puppies, or an emergency at the clinic, rearranges everyone's plans.

    Extras the house runs — weekly rooftop yoga, weekly film nights, a monthly bike tour through the paddy fields and a monthly barbecue, all included.

    Weekends — Free. Unawatuna Beach is across the road, Galle Fort is twenty minutes away, and Mirissa, Ahangama, Tangalle, Yala and Sinharaja are all within a weekend.

    Free-time activities

    You are based in Unawatuna with the beach across the road, so afternoons and evenings look after themselves. The snorkelling off the point is good, surf lessons are cheap, and the sunset from Galle Fort's ramparts, twenty minutes away, is worth doing more than once.

    Further along the coast, Mirissa ...

    Free-time activities

    You are based in Unawatuna with the beach across the road, so afternoons and evenings look after themselves. The snorkelling off the point is good, surf lessons are cheap, and the sunset from Galle Fort's ramparts, twenty minutes away, is worth doing more than once.

    Further along the coast, Mirissa runs whale-watching trips from November to April, and Ahangama and Tangalle have the better surf. Inland, Yala and Bundala national parks and the Sinharaja rainforest are all weekend-sized, and the hill-country train to Ella is one of the world's great rail journeys if you have three days to give it.

    The volunteer house runs a weekly rooftop yoga class, weekly film nights, a monthly bike tour through the paddy fields and a monthly barbecue, all included and all a good way to meet the volunteers on the other projects.

    Requirements

    Requirements

    Minimum Age: 17 years

    In order to join the program you need to be at least 17 years old on the program start date.

    Criminal Background Check

    required

    Required Documents

    Passport copy, travel and medical insurance and proof of tetanus vaccination

    Nationality Restrictions

    No restrictions. Helping hands from all over the world are welcome.

    Other Skills

    No veterinary or animal-care qualification is required, though anything you have - veterinary or nursing study, kennel or rescue work, dog training, grooming - will be put to use. What matters more is being calm and unhurried around frightened animals, physically able to work outdoors in heat, and steady enough to cope with dogs that arrive injured or abused. Make sure your tetanus jab is current and talk to a travel clinic about rabies pre-exposure vaccination.

    Time Commitment

    Your helping hand will be required on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 08:00 - 13:00

    What's Included

    What's Included

    On-site Services

    Included in the programme fee:

    • Accommodation in a volunteer house in Unawatuna, with Wi-Fi
    • Breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, including weekends
    • Shared arrival transfer from Colombo airport on Saturdays within the set time windows
    • Orientation and training on arrival, including safe handling of the dogs
    • Local transport to and from the sanctuary by private air-conditioned van or tuk tuk
    • Guaranteed placement, and an experienced bilingual operations team on the ground
    • Staff support 6am to 8pm daily, plus 24/7 local emergency support
    • Weekly rooftop yoga, weekly film nights, monthly bike tour through the paddy fields, monthly barbecue
    • Comprehensive pre-departure information and a certificate of participation on request

    Not included:

    • International flights
    • Sri Lankan ETA (visa) fee
    • The return transfer from Galle to Colombo — arranged for you but paid locally
    • A private arrival transfer if you land outside the Saturday windows
    • Travel and medical insurance, which is mandatory. Buy it through us at extra cost, or bring your own and send a copy
    • Vaccinations, including rabies pre-exposure vaccination, which we strongly recommend for this placement
    • Weekend travel and personal spending

    The price shown already includes your application fee – there is nothing further to pay us on arrival. Payment can be split into interest-free instalments, with the balance due 45 days before you start.

    Airport Pickup at Bandaranaike International Airport

    Read this before you book your flight. The arrival transfer is included, but with conditions that catch people out.

    You are collected from Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB) and driven to Galle, about two and a half hours south. The included transfer is shared, on Saturdays only, within two set time windows — one morning, one afternoon or evening.

    • Land on a Saturday inside a window and the transfer costs you nothing.
    • Land outside the windows, or on any other day, and a private transfer costs USD 100.

    Timing your flight to a Saturday window is the easiest hundred dollars you will save on this trip.

    The return transfer from Galle to Colombo is not included. The team arranges it and you pay locally in Sri Lanka at the end of your placement.

    Accommodation

    You stay in Unawatuna, in one of two volunteer houses about a hundred metres apart, both overlooking Unawatuna Beach and the Indian Ocean.

    The beachside house sits directly across the road from the beach. Twelve bedrooms of varying sizes, all en-suite and air-conditioned, most with their own outdoor balcony, plus a dining area, lounge, terrace, small garden and an office with permanent staff on site. CCTV throughout and an overnight security team.

    The larger house has thirteen en-suite bedrooms, most with ocean views, and a private forty-foot outdoor swimming pool set in tropical planting. Three kitchens, three common rooms, a large dining area and a garden with seating.

    Rooms are shared and all have Wi-Fi. Which house you are in depends on availability.

    After a day at the sanctuary, a pool and an ocean are more welcome than you might expect. Bring clothes and shoes you do not mind getting muddy, chewed or worse — and keep them separate from everything else.

    Food & Beverages

    Breakfast, lunch and dinner every day of the week, weekends included — which is unusual on volunteer programmes and worth noticing when you compare prices.

    Meals are cooked at the volunteer house and are mostly Sri Lankan: rice and curry in its many forms, dhal, coconut sambol, hoppers and string hoppers, plenty of fresh tropical fruit, and western options in rotation for anyone needing a break from chilli. The south coast means the fish is excellent.

    Tell the team about allergies and dietary requirements before you arrive. Vegetarians are very well served in Sri Lanka; vegans and anyone with a serious allergy should flag it early so the kitchen can plan properly.

    A monthly barbecue and weekly film nights are included too.

    Internet Access

    Good access at the project site
    You don't have to pay anything yet

    What's NOT included?

    What's NOT included?

    Flight Tickets

    The nearest airport is Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB) in Colombo. We assist you to find cheap flights to Sri Lanka. FIND CHEAP FLIGHTS

    Travel Insurance

    Going abroad is an adventure and it is always best to be prepared. Sudden illness or injury, cancellation or theft - a travel insurance for Sri Lanka provides security and is a plus to have. GET A QUOTE

    Vaccines

    If you are intending to volunteer in Sri Lanka you should seek medical advice before starting your social journey. Check your required vaccinations for Sri Lanka. VACCINE CHECKER

    Details on arrival

    Start dates — Weekly, year-round, arriving on a Saturday.

    Getting there — Fly into Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB). Galle is about two and a half hours south on the expressway.

    Transfers — read before booking your flight

    • The arrival transfer is included, but only as a shared transfer on Saturday within two set windows: one morning, one afternoon/evening.
    • Outside those windows, or on any other day, a private transfer costs USD 100.
    • The return transfer from Galle to Colombo is not included — it is arranged for you and paid locally at the end of your stay.

    Health — take this one seriously

    You will be handling street-rescued dogs. Make sure your tetanus vaccination is current, and speak to a travel clinic about rabies pre-exposure vaccination well before you travel. It is not a formal requirement of the programme, but it is the sensible precaution for this particular placement and the course takes several weeks to complete.

    Bring closed shoes you do not mind ruining, and clothes you are happy to get muddy and chewed.

    Visa — Sri Lanka requires an ETA for most nationalities, applied for online before travel. The fee is not included.

    When to come — The south coast is driest from December to April. May to September brings the southwest monsoon with rain in bursts, fewer tourists and lower prices. The sanctuary runs year-round; the dogs do not observe a season.

    Availability
    Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

    Program Fees

    $629 per week 1 - 20 weeks Age 17 - 50+

    Payment methods

    Visa Master Card Maestro American Express PayPal

    NO CREDIT CARD FEES

    Duration

    1 - 20 weeks

    Deposit

    Reserve your spot with just a few clicks and a small, secure deposit. You can pay by credit card, PayPal, or other convenient methods.

    Final Payment

    You’ll agree on the final payment method with your local organization during the application process. This final payment is only due closer to the start of your trip.

    You don't have to pay anything yet
    4.5
    Top Pick
    One of the top picks on Volunteer World, according to travelers

    Location

    Asia > Southern Asia > Sri Lanka > Galle

    Meet your project coordinator

    Sahil
    29
    reviews
    4.54
    Fantastic
    2007
    Founded

    Verified

      Below average response rate
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    Volunteer Abroad  >  Animals  >  Street Animals in Sri Lanka
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    Travel dates

    1. - 1. Jan 1

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