My experience as a one-week volunteer on ElephantsWorld

My name is Coline and I am a volunteer at ElephantsWorld for one week. What brought me here? I was looking for short-term volunteer programs with elephants in Thailand, and came across ElephantsWorld. This is a place where people work for elephants instead of the other way around. To see old and retired elephants getting healthy and happy again is such a wonderful idea, that I wanted to see it with my own eyes. I signed up and went to Thailand.

On your first day, you get picked up by a car from the city and you join the visitors day-program. Feeding the elephants, washing them, preparing sticky-rice balls, banana tree cutting, and more feeding the elephants. It is a great experience and very nice to get in touch with the elephants. In this way, you get to know what ElephantsWorld does for the elephants and you get a glimpse of what the volunteers do. You should make many pictures on this day, because you do not have too much time to do it another time (during the day at least).

During the morning, you only start preparing fruit baskets at 8.00. I really like to get up earlier (happens anyway since the dogs or geckos will wake you) and walk around. It is really quiet and you can see all the elephants standing around the river. The sunrise is really nice as well. I recommend everyone to join the hike up the mountain in the morning when there are overnight visitors. The view is beautiful! So, what I am trying to say is that, even though you do not have that much free time during the day, there is plenty of time to do your own stuff before and after the visitors come and leave. It is mostly at these moments that I realize I am being around elephants the whole day.

So, why did I only go for a week? This week of volunteering is an extension of my holidays before going to China for my studies. Unfortunately, I did not have time to stay longer, because I really would have liked to. I can recommend it very much. Even if you do not have that much time, you can come here and help for a week. You might not get as many responsibilities, but you have the experience of being around elephants the whole day, taking care of them and sharing evenings with volunteers and mahouts. You will even be able to tell apart the elephants within this week (names and background stories) and you can give tours as a guide too. Some advantages of being here for a week only: you have a really nice room for yourself with your own bathroom. And the food is really good!

In all, I recommend everyone coming to volunteer at ElephantsWorld, even if it is just for a week! To work with these amazing, large, and beautiful elephants is just great. You can see that with everyone around here, both volunteers and mahouts. Everyone works very hard with all their heart, in order to give the elephants the best retirement they could wish for and deserve.