Wildlife Safari Experience & Day Care

The project

Attention all gap year travelers, looking for a memorable volunteer vacation abroad, Volunteering Solutions brings you a specially designed 3 weeks project which will offer a unique blend of some really meaningful volunteer work and thrilling African adventures. This is the Tanzania Volunteer Adventure Program. 

Home to the world famous Serengeti National Park, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the Big Five of Africa (African lion, African elephant, Cape buffalo, African leopard, and rhinoceros), Tanzania is a great destination to experience the typical African adventures. Volunteers joining this 3 weeks extravaganza will be volunteering for the welfare and development of underprivileged children from the poor local communities over the weekdays, and will witness the best of African safaris, wildlife, and local cultures during weekend trips. 

Role as a volunteer

Your role as a volunteer will be to provide the much needed support and love to these children who have lost their parents. Due to the widespread disease of HIV/ AIDS, many children have become homeless in Tanzania and other African countries. The extended families of these children are forced to send the children to such orphanages. 

Volunteering with children in an orphanage is the most rewarding experience for gap year travelers. If you choose to do volunteer work in orphanages, you need to be adaptable, flexible and prepared to face and hear heartbreaking stories of the children's backgrounds. In a typical project placement, there are around 30-40 children in the age group of 4-15 years.

What you can expect

This is a highly popular summer program and a lot of high school as well as college students choose this program as a part of their gap year vacation; especially during summers. Not only is this an opportunity to contribute in the development of several unfortunate lives and learn about the local African culture and lifestyle,  but also to meet likeminded people  and make some new friends from around the world.

The program has a fixed duration of 3 weeks and is available almost throughout the year with different start dates in each month. 

The first day of this adventure trip is the arrival day. All the volunteers, who have applied for a particular start date, will be picked up by the local coordinator from the Kilimanjaro International Airport, and will be transferred to their volunteer house accommodation in Arusha. 

The second day will be introduction day, with a detailed orientation conducted by the local coordinator in the morning. The orientation will include discussion over topics such as safety, culture, and information about the local area including internet café, banks, restaurants and markets.Basic Swahili lessons will also be provided to you. This will be followed by a local city tour. 

The next four days (Tuesday - Friday) will be volunteer work days, as the local coordinator will take you to your project placement center on the first day to introduce you to the kids at the placement, as well as the local staff.  Volunteers will work with the existing staff and provide love and care to the children at the placement. Volunteers main role is to keep the children involved and engaged in various activities. Volunteers will feed, dress and play with the children. Volunteers are welcome to use their administrative tasks to streamline the work at placement.

The first weekend of this intrepid tour will mark a visit to one of the oldest tribal community in Africa; the Masai community. Meet these intriguing people from Masai community and interact with them to learn about their culture and lifestyle. A once in a lifetime experience. 

With a relaxing Sunday, volunteers will continue with their volunteer work at the placement from the second week onward. The same volunteer work continues for the next 5 days. On one of the days, volunteers will also be taken to meet the HIV/AIDS victims in Outreach Medical Program.

The second weekend will begin with some local sightseeing; including visits to the waterfalls, coffee plantations and Chagga Live Museums in Marangu. On the next day, Sunday, volunteers will leave for the much awaited Adventure Safari. The next 3 days will be complete package of wildlife safaris, camping in jungles, witnessing the Big 5 of Africa, and lots more.Enjoy a fabulous 3 day wildlife camping safari experience at Ngorongoro, Tarangire and Lake Manyara National Park.

The last few days will be spent in some volunteering work at the placement, shopping around the local as well as Masai markets, and good bye hugs (party)!

Being a volunteer adventure program, weekend activities and trips are already included in this program. As for the free time in the evening during weekdays, volunteers can explore the local market, or simply relax at the accommodation and interact more with the fellow volunteers from the group.