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What’s new for volunteering? 2018’s top selling projects Volunteering Fam Trips

Q&A with Dan Moore (Starfish founder)

The new Volunteering brochure is now available on our Partner Portal. Have a read through, we have lots of exciting new products as well as our best-selling, tried and tested projects! Click on https://bit.ly/2CPto8f to download the brochure (PDF).

In this newsletter we’ll cover a few highlights, new projects, cheat sheets and helpful tips to help you sell more VWL.

“Volunteering: You get to experience real life situations in places you are not used to. I really think if you want to go away, explore and see different countries, then why not help at the same time and speak to people whose lives are totally different from your own. Everyone can go and look at landmarks but only a few people have the experience of making a difference.”

What’s new for volunteering?

New Voluntours

Mexico Voluntour - MEXVOL Including a Turtle Conservation Project

South Africa Voluntour - CPTAFR Including Garden Route touring and working with communities in Cape Town and working on a Big 5 Game Reserve

Uganda Voluntour - BAMKLA Community Volunteering & Wildlife Adventure

Vietnam Voluntour - BAMSGN Volunteer in a Food Shop in HCMC and hop on a Bamba Vietnam Explorer all the way up to Hanoi

Sri Lanka Voluntour - BAMCMB Volunteer in a tree plantation village before exploring more of Sri Lanka

New Projects

School Renovation Project in Surin - STASUR A new option helping the local communities without teaching with our partner STARFISH

Perhentian Islands Turtle Conservation - TURMAL Looking after turtles in paradise. A tough one.

Women Empowerment Project in India - GVIWOM Based in beautiful Kerala with GVI

Elephant Conservation Sri Lanka - CMBVOL A great option to do something a bit different in Sri Lanka before the beach stay!

Adventure Surf Club Project, Cape Town - CPTSAV We have a new Surf project South Africa with our friends from Salty Crax

Panthera Lion Sanctuary, Cape Town - SAVPAN New wildlife conservation option not very far from Cape Town so an easy sell!

Wildlife Expedition in Costa Rica - GVICOS Heading to the jungle spotting SLOTHS with GVI! I know you want to do this!

Desert Wildlife Conservation, Israel - JRSWIL New Conservation projects in this exciting destination

Coral Reef Conservation, Israel – JRSCOR

Internships (6 to 24 weeks)

These are not in the brochure as individual products, but are mentioned in the intro pages, as well as in the projects where we have the option to book customers on internships. Our partner GVI offers internships on projects around the world. These are a great way to gain that much needed work experience, boost the resume and explore a new culture and way of life, whilst contributing to key global issues across a variety of fields. Plus, you will also get some good commission in your pocket!

2018’s top selling projects

Thailand Voluntours with Starfish

Starfish have been our top selling products for a couple of years, and the itinerary for 2019 will be even better, including;

Two amazing Islands (Koh Phangan and Koh Tao) on the four weeks Thailand Voluntour and the four weeks Thailand and Cambodia Combo.

The projects included will be the Elephant Village in Surin (plus school renovation projects in Surin on longer tours).

No background checks are required for any of the Starfish Voluntours in Thailand and Thailand & Cambodia! Read our Q&A below for even more info.

Shamwari Conservation Experience

What can we say, we do love this place! It’s an incredible experience and the work they are doing there is so vital. You cannot go wrong with sending customers there but be aware it is a very popular place.

Thai Elephant Conservation

This is still one of our top sellers. Follow Elephant Nature Park on Facebook as you will find some amazing stories on there about the elephants they are rescuing from abusive circumstances and bringing them to the park to finally have a happier life.

Help Children in Cape Town

YOU2AFRICA have been doing an amazing job for many years bringing volunteers to Cape Town from all over the world and getting them involved with communities in this beautiful city. It is one of the most social projects in one of the best spots in the world.

Work with Orang-utans in Borneo

This project is in a beautiful part of the world, taking care of these unique animals, not just Orang-utans, but also Sunbears and many others. So worthwhile!

Volunteering FAM trips 2018

This year we’ve already had two volunteering FAM trips, with one more to go later in the year.

March – Volunteering in Mexico with GVI

Our staff from CEU, AU, USA and UK visited our amazing projects with GVI in Mexico. Based in Playa del Carmen. Volunteers can participate in programmes there within community development (children, vulnerable adults, animal shelters etc) or marine conservation:

“My favourite time spent was with the children from 'Save the Children'. They either have a horrific home life or their parents work long hours and they would be home alone. The local community help run this daily and give these kids a chance to just be a kid for a few hours”

“Learning about local life and why these projects are available were the most amazing highlights for me. It was really interesting to learn about how the school was founded and why the children were not able to attend a local government school. Even seeing the parents volunteer their time every day to make the school bigger and better was inspiring”

“I´m 100% sure that volunteering changes the lives of our customers… and if you just reach one out of 100 locals, this would be a benefit.”

June – Voluntuktuk Tour in Thailand with Starfish and the Tuk Tuk Club

Agents spent a week in Thailand visiting our Elephant Experience projects in Surin and Chiang Mai and had lots fun driving a Tuk Tuk through the beautiful hills North of Chiang Mai:

“My 'WOW' moment hands down have to have been when we spent the day with the Asian elephants. Although experiencing this before, I felt humble when I was able to walk, wash and feed them and just being able to learn more from them, especially the history of the Thai elephant in Asia and I am happy to see that they are well taken care of.”

“Volunteering is a much more rewarding and inspiring way to travel. It added another, deeper, layer to my Thailand experience and provided incredibly rich memories, as well as the chance to give something back to the country as I travelled. I gained so much from just a few short days volunteering that I can only imagine how rewarding it would be for someone staying a week or two.”

Q&A with Dan Moore (Founder of Starfish Thailand)

1. Tell us a bit more about you and why/how you have founded Starfish

After about seven years of living and working in London, specifically in advertising, I decided to take a career break and headed to Thailand to volunteer in Surin for three months; I stayed six. I absolutely loved volunteering, Thailand, the people, the food, the climate.... the whole shebang. I loved my new life.

I started Starfish for two reasons, so I could continue to help with people of Surin and so I could stay, maybe the latter was the big driver for my decision :) Fifteen years later I am still here (plus a wife and three daughters).

From our humble beginnings in Surin we now run volunteering in two locations, tours and voluntours all over the country and employ 35 people. Back in the day volunteers

used to live with me, I cooked for them and ran Starfish using dial up internet! I love how far we have come. This is due to having such a fantastic team, some of my staff have been with me for ten years.

I love the work we do, and seeing the communities benefit from our volunteers’ work. Starfish today is social enterprise, a commercial business committed to social responsibility. It is a commercial viability, all our projects are funded through our travellers’ fees, that makes our continued support sustainable.

2. Where do you see the biggest impact on the local partners and communities you work with and how can our customers support this?

By engaging with the locals. I know how much it means to the communities in which we interact when customers take the time to talk, listen and learn. This is made possible by our fantastic interpreters. 100% of the money Starfish receives is spent in Thailand; we use local businesses and local people whenever possible. Along with the hard work of our customers completing their volunteer projects, there is massive drip down effect from them, and Starfish, supporting local businesses. We are supporting economic growth.

3. What are the exciting changes in the itineraries for 2019 with Starfish for our travellers?

There are two big changes. First, coordinating the project days across the voluntours so groups can merge and we can guarantee good group sizes. We are focusing next years on health and hygiene at poor schools in Surin. We are planning 16 projects, starting with the basics; ensuring the schools have running water. Pressure is low on mains water systems in Thailand, creating gravity water systems ensure kids can wash their hands. This will make a big difference with hygiene. We will move on to fixing toilets, taps, and improving standards in kitchens. Thai schools are heavily underfunded. There is so much we can achieve.

The second big change is adding Ko Tao on our 29-day trips for the same price! Customers will now have their two-week adventure, community and volunteer experiences followed by one week on Ko Tao and one week on Ko Phangan.

Some alternative non voluntour 21-day trips STA offer cost 1320 GPB in 2019, our 29-day Voluntour is 1099 GBP. It’s an incredible deal. Customers get to party in Bangkok, Ko Tao, Ko Phangan, and have a genuine community experience in Surin which includes a school renovation project and a week at our elephant village. It truly has everything.