Zimbabwe - African Wildlife Orphanage

When I was working at the old peoples home in Zimbabwe I met a really interesting 100 year old woman! I would often see her up before breakfast sweeping her porch! When she was introduced to anyone she would turn to someone who knew her and say "You know who I am, why are you asking again." I though that was funny!

I chose this program because I wanted to gain experience working with animals for my future career and I could have never imagined everything I would get to do. The volunteers are in charge of caring for the babies and helping with various projects around the orphanage. While I was there they had 3 baby barn owls, a baby serval, a baby duiker, and 3 baby pookies along with some other critters that we were in charge of caring for. Each day we also get an hour of animal time which allows us to spend time with any of the animals at the orphanage. The amount of knowledge and experienced gained in just 5 short weeks was incredible!

Wow! What can I say?! I signed up for this program because of other people's reviews. I was not disappointed! I was looking for a program with a lot of hands on animal time and that is exactly what I got. One of the coolest things I was able to do while at the wildlife orphanage was microchip a hyena. They had rescued some hyenas and unfortunately, could not return them to the wild. My time spent there included prepping enclosures for them so we could move them to a better and more suited area of the orphanage. In order to move them, we needed to dart them, collect health information, microchip them, and then relocate before they woke up. It was so cool that the orphanage lets you do these types of things with their supervision. Also, while I was there, a monkey somehow got a cut on it's leg. We had to dart him as well so stitches could be put in. One of the volunteers there had just graduated from vet school so they let her administer the stitches with their supervision.

When deciding between the various volunteering experiences offered at GoEco, I was most drawn to the wildlife orphanage because of the opportunity to work closely with a wide range of animals. I was not at all disappointed and over just two weeks, I was involved in the feeding and caring for lions, leopards, servals, a cheeky baby duiker, owls, and much, much more.

Dealing for the first time with wild animals was a real joy, hard work but so gratifying. Dealing daily with animals, preparing their food and feeding the baby animals, then cleaning cages, collecting grasshoppers for the chameleons, working with the staff and the other volunteers was very enriching, and I recommend this volunteering program to anyone who loves animals !