Profile information
Host rating
100 %
Last replied
19 Jan 2025
Reply rate
100.0 %
Usually responds within 17 days
Feedback
31
ID verified
Email verified
Badges (4)
Find your perfect host
Details
Description
Spring season: 1st of april - 1st of July 2025
Autumn season 1st of august - 1st of november 2025
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are a well-established environmental NGO in Norway and have been fighting marine pollution since 2017. We are now searching for volunteers who can join in the period of the 8th of April to the 30th of June (Spring Season) and from the 1st of August to the 31st of October (Autumn Season).
We travel along the Norwegian coastline tackling the problem of marine pollution first-hand. This is not only important but fun! While getting the experience of working in an environmental organization you also get to see Norway´s beautiful coastline by boat while making friends from all around the world!
Sounds interesting?
Make sure to read all the information below before applying!
Our 2024 mission
Our mission this year is to collect marine litter and educate along the beautiful west coast of Norway. Among deep fjords and high mountains, we move once a week, meaning that you will explore and experience many different parts of the country alongside the coast.
The project is divided into two parts: the Spring season from the 1st of April to the 30th of June, and the autumn season from the 1st of August to the 31st of October. We are looking for long-term volunteers within these periods. What we mean by long-term is from 4 weeks to 3 months. The longer you're willing to stay the higher chance it is that you get to join the team. We do it this way because it takes some time to get used to our way of living and working, and it´s simply more fun for all of us if we stay for a longer time. The volunteer group consists of 5 – 8 people.
What we´re looking for:
We are looking for people between the ages of 18 to 30 years who have an active lifestyle. You love nature and like to be outside, and you come to our project wanting to help the environment. You don´t need any experience with either being on the ocean or beach cleaning, we will teach you!
It´s also important that you know our expectations of you as a volunteer. You will be expected to work hard. Anyone who expected a vacation or a holiday type of stay will be disappointed. However, if you read through all our information and feel that you´re the right person for volunteering with us, we promise an experience of a lifetime! You will get friends for life, and experience Norway´s beautiful coastline while doing something good for the environment.
About the Project:
The project has two main focuses. Education and Beach Cleaning.
Beach cleaning is an adventure in itself. While doing something good for the environment you also get to experience untouched nature, rough sea, and wildlife. As a volunteer, you get to see parts of Norway’s coastline that few others have seen while removing tons of marine litter to preserve our precious ecosystem. If you join our crew, you will be taking part in the important job of cleaning beaches from marine waste, not only to preserve nature but also to create awareness and structural changes. We believe that when people see the problem up close there is a higher chance of understanding the problem, to take ownership of the problem that we all are a part of. This again creates a willingness for change, which again creates room for further political action to stop the creation of marine pollution at its root.
But we don’t stop there. An important step in decreasing marine pollution is knowledge. Therefore, parallel to cleaning we give lectures about marine pollution to the age group ranging from kindergarten to high school. The lectures are mainly given in Norwegian, but as a volunteer, you are an important part of making it possible for the teacher to give lectures and spread awareness about marine pollution. We have created an outdoor classroom to bring with us along the coastline. Our mobile classroom consists of a pop-up tent where we invite students down to the sea. As a volunteer, you will help with logistics, creating the classroom atmosphere, and sometimes help during lectures. Our students find it very interesting to get to know people from other countries and are eager to practice their English with you. We also arrange beach cleaning events with school children and locals, giving you the chance to meet and talk to the local community of the places we visit. We believe that the combination of beach cleaning parallel to educating the younger generations is a big step towards less waste and more care for our environment. By educating the younger generations and creating awareness from an early age is something we strongly believe to be a key to stopping marine pollution.
Who are we?
Our organization was founded in 1993 and is a well-established environmental NGO in Norway with headquarters in Bergen, and regional offices in Tromsø, Trondheim, and Oslo. In our work for environmental protection, we do not only focus on marine pollution. Our fields consist of all direct and indirect cases between environmental protection and social welfare, such as climate, ecosystem protection, the marine environment, food security, indigenous rights, politics, building protection, etc. Basically, everything concerning the environment, our climate, and society are all fields we are involved in. Furthermore, as many of the environmental cases we are concerned with have an international reach and character, we extend our work outwards as needed.
Our NGO has since 2017 had a clear goal and path for stopping marine pollution. In those years, we have traveled up and down the Norwegian coastline three times, while also having longer missions in different parts of the country. Over 3000 volunteers have joined our project, among those 60 have been long-term volunteers.
We have collected over 200 000 kg of marine litter and educated over 10 800 kids and students.
-----------------------
HOW TO APPLY:
- Answer ALL the following questions thoroughly when reaching out to us :)
Contact information:
- Full name
- Gender
- Age
- Nationality
- Email
- Phone number
- Home address
Media:
If you have, please add your Facebook and Instagram URL link.
Let us get to know you :)
- Tell us a bit more about you. We want to get to know you as a person, for example, what your favorite things to do are, what goals you have and what´s important for you in life
- Why should we choose you?
Skills
Do you have any special skills or experience we should know about?
For example:
- Maritime Experience
- First AID, CPR, Lifeguard, swim guard, or other medical experience
- Photography, filmmaking, media, publishing
- Team leading, personal trainer, motivator, etc.
A bit more information about you:
- Do you have any food allergies? (If yes, please elaborate)
- Your food preferences (I eat everything / Vegan / Vegetarian)
- Any physical or mental illnesses? (yes/no)
- Health insurance? (yes/no)
- Tetanus Vaccine? (yes/no)
- Driver’s License (yes/no)
- Boat Driver’s License (yes/no)
Emergency contact:
We need a contact to call if something happens to you when volunteering with us.
- Name, Phone number, and email of emergency contact
Lastly, how long are you willing to stay with us? (1 month, 2 months, or 3 months)
(The longer you can stay, the higher the probability it is that we choose you)
- What is your preferred date of arrival?
*We´re currently working on making a web page where we provide you with even more information about the project. If you send in an application and are accepted we will send you all the information you will need in the meantime. If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact us :)
Types of help and learning opportunities
Charity Work
Language practice
Help with Eco Projects
Teaching
DIY and building projects
Creating/ Cooking family meals
General Maintenance
UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
Travelers who come to our project will find a meeting ground for many different nationalities and cultures, among learning about the Norwegian culture and history we often try to make different dishes from the countries our volunteers are from; and you will also get to taste some proper Norwegian food.
You will be introduced to our local communities along the coast, visiting cities and villages to see how we live and protect nature. You will also meet the younger generations through lectures, and probably have some interesting chats with locals on beach cleaning events.
You will create international connections by volunteering for one of Norway´s most established environmental NGO, while also likely learn a lot about environmental protection and politics from us, as these are topics we often discuss.
If you're interested you can also learn a lot about being on the ocean, driving a boat, map navigation, and boat knots, etc.
On top of that you will meet people from all over the world, creating contacts and friends for life :)
Help
We need help to stop marine pollution! You can be an important part of doing that with beach cleaning and spreading awareness through conversations and social media. You will take part in daily tasks such as cooking, cleaning, maintenance with the boat, and of course, learn how to drive a boat.
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
Norwegian bokmål: Fluent
Accommodation
Our accommodation consists of houses, cabins and/or sometimes community buildings. It is in general good standards on the places we live. There is always access to a kitchen, shower and washing machine. However, keep in mind that we live on a small area together over a longer period, and you will have to share rooms (and sometimes double beds) with other volunteers of same gender.
Meals are made by the group 3-4 times a day. We decide collectively on what to eat. If you have special preferences, you may bring personal food. We serve fish, meat and vegetables, and water to drink. However, we try to keep it as sustainable as possible
We provide meals which the group makes and decides on together. Usually, we have 3-4 meals a day. We serve fish, meat and vegetables, and water to drink. However, we try to keep our food consumption and living pattern as sustainable as possible, and usually if there is one or two vegetarians in the group, we all eat vegetarian. But there will always be possible to catch some fish for dinner and to buy meat at the grocery store if wanted. If you have any special preferences, you can bring personal food, or get it when we go to the grocery store.
What else ...
On your time off there will be plenty of opportunities to explore the places were at, go hiking and other fun activities. We might also go out with the boat and catch some fish for dinner.
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
How many Workawayers can stay?
More than two
Feedback (14)
Ida, Ruben, and the crew are such passionate people. You can immediately feel their energy and commitment, which makes you want to follow their lead and invest just as much.
It is a lot of hard work, but it is so rewarding and worth it. On top of… read more
Photos
Feedback
These are extra optional ratings when members leave feedback. The average rating left for each option is displayed.
Accuracy of profile:
(5.0)
Cultural exchange:
(5.0)
Communication:
(4.9)
Ida, Ruben, and the crew are such passionate people. You can immediately feel their energy and commitment, which makes you want to follow their lead and invest just as much.
It is a lot of hard work, but it is so rewarding and worth it. On top of… read more
This project is something else, yes, because it's extremely rare to find an organisation that actually works towards being an active part of the change. I'm delighted that I had the chance to witness what making an impact means.
The main objective of the project… read more
Every day felt meaningful and inspired—heading out on the boat with the common goal of doing our part for the environment.
I warmly recommend applying if you're ready to take matters into your own hands. It is hard work, but it is nothing compared to the rewarding feeling of… read more
Last but not least the team of international volunteers: we… read more
I spend 6 weeks and am so thankful for the whole experience, which included ice-cold fjord water in my face, screm-singing in the car, fishing (4 fish at the same time?!?) and the satisfaction of leaving many remote rocky beaches tons of plastic… read more
I highly recommend this experience if you want to get your hands dirty and fight against marine pollution!
All the… read more
Best wishes,
Ida and the team
Ps: we all got inspired to start crocheting because of you
Loft of love, the crew!
From Norway with love <3 -Ida
Of course, it isn’t difficult to list all the unique memories this project allowed me to collect - from kayaking, fishing, hiking and sleeping amongst the wild heather on secluded islands, to grilling, swimming, chasing sunsets and even witnessing whales in the wild-… read more
