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Join a rainforest protection project in Balangoda, Sri Lanka

Availability

  2025 

 Min stay requested: at least 2 weeks

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Details

  • Description

    Description

    Make our BASECAMP your Base in Sri Lanka. Make it your HOME AWAY HOME. Make it your place to fall back to when you are tired of travelling. Make it your local place to have the local vibe that is not so touristic. If you are feeling all your travels adds to climate change, make it your place to pay back to the environment:)

    We are a non-profit environmental organization with a mission to protect the last remaining rainforests and threatened ecosystems in Sri Lanka including Sinharaja and Knucles which are two UNESCO world heritage sites through conservation projects and environmental activism primarily driven through volunteer support. Our project also engage in permanent purchase of rainforests and reforestation/restoration projects in degraded forest landscapes in order to support SDG, Bonn Challenge and achieving Sri Lanka's forest cover targets. We need hundreds of volunteers to plant trees, To remove invasives, to work with local communities and youth, while helping us improve our conservation efforts of our forests that we protect or restore in different climatic zones in Sri Lanka.

    In this specific project open for volunteering and workaway is a ecosystem restoration project (reforestation) of a 50 acre degraded hill which is scalable up to 250 acres of degraded forest lands back to its original lush green. We are creating a Rainforest from literally nothing and so far have seen significant change of landscape from a burnt hill to a hill full of plants that are already looks so green :)

  • Types of help and learning opportunities

    Types of help and learning opportunities

    Charity Work
    Help with Eco Projects
    Gardening
    DIY and building projects
    Farmstay help
    Help around the house
  • Interests

    Interests

    Culture
    Movies & TV
    Vegetarian or vegan
    Van life
    Self development
    Sustainability
    Politics / Social justice
    Farming
    Events & social
    Charity work
    Writing
    Hitchhiking
    Plant care
    Music
    History
    Gardening
    Astronomy
    Cooking & food
    Yoga / Wellness
    Outdoor activities
    Nature
    Mountain
    Hiking
    Dancing
    Camping
  • UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve

    UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve

    UN goals
    No poverty
    Zero hunger
    Good health and well-being
    Quality education
    Gender equality
    Clean water and sanitation
    Affordable and clean energy
    Decent work and economic growth
    Industries, innovation and infrastructure
    Reduce inequality
    Sustainable cities and communities
    Responsible consumption and production
    Climate action
    Life below water
    Life on land
    Peace, justice and strong institutions
    Partnerships for the goals
  • Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

    Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

    Travelers can learn A-Z of conservation to climate change. Basics of environment to ecosystem services to conservation challenges in Sri Lanka and globally. We as hosts have a wide range of understanding on all global conservation challenges. They will get to know rural Sri Lanka, farming practices, livelihood of farming villages, food culture and traditions.

    You will be coming to a place where there is always a very interesting group of volunteers and workawayers from around the world as we now have developed a fantastic global community interested in the work we do in creating a forest from literally nothing (From Ashes I would say). You will therefore not only learn local culture but also many cultures from around the world.

    You will get to live in a forest, see many beautiful natural wonders such as fantastic waterfalls, rivers and amazing hikes. They will learn why Sri Lanka is a biodiversity hotspot and also how human animal conflict has become one of the biggest threat to its biodiversity heritage. Of course, you will learn Buddhist culture, practices and traditions and introduce different cultural diversity and outputs to the project areas where we operate that are not so touristic.

    You will also learn village economy and agricultural economy and also how farming and farmer practices were transformed over the decades resulting in a completely different and yet questionable consumption pattern. You will also get to meet the Estate Community, an Indian Tamil community brought to Sri Lanka by the British to work in tea estates, became locals refused to provide labor for the British. This estate Tamil community is a completely different culture and a history which is probably the most fascinating learning for travelers.

  • Projects involving children

    Projects involving children

    This project could involve children. For more information see our guidelines and tips here.

  • Help

    Help

    We would love you to plant trees during rainy season and do weeding out (Invasive removal) and watering plants during dry season. We have plant nurseries that need care and maintenance. We want you to be guardians and promotors of our Rainforests that we have permanently preserved. If you are good at tech, research or even creating promotional material such as short videos, you'd be so much more handy.

  • Languages

    Languages spoken
    English: Fluent
    Sinhalese: Fluent
    Tamil: Intermediate

    This host offers a language exchange
    We would love to learn French, German, Spanish and Greek language.

  • Accommodation

    Accommodation

    Basic volunteer house with 2 bedrooms, a visitor room, a dining room, a small traditional kitchen, two non-attached bathrooms, an open completely NATURAL MUD HOUSE for those who likes such experiences of traditional living half a century ago, (A 2 storied BAMBOO HOUSE is on the way and a TREE HOUSE almost complete) few hammocks and a house almost inside a protected area. It's a typical rural house with a lot of local food to experience if you like our village lady (She's the poorest of the village and we picked her for this for a reason :) to cook for you who only charges about 7 dollars for all three meals a day per person including "Ceylon tea" many times a day. You can also COOK YOUR OWN FOOD if you like in the woodstove we have if you don't fancy the local food that much and wants to make your own dishes.

  • What else ...

    What else ...

    Fantastic waterfalls, rivers are around where you can have a good river bath. Plenty of viewpoints in the area and so many hikes to do. Many temples, monasteries and a lot of farmlands if anyone wants to see how farming is done here. Udawalawe national park is not that far. You can sometimes see elephants in the area even during daytime in some seasons. A lot of biodiversity, if you are a birder, hundreds of birds. Monkeys and giant quarrels are very common in the volunteer house.

    We have a economically challenged lady in the village with two kids to whom we have given some work including cooking food for volunteers, workawayers, university students and corporate volunteers who cooks delicious local food and offers them at 7 dollars a day for all three meals. If you like to get food from this local lady it would help the setup and it would add to projects community benefit part. If not, we have the traditional kitchen with woodstove which you can use to cook your own food. You can always inform us this preference well in advance ! (Check availability at a given time beforehand please :) as if its used to cook for many, or by many and it might not be available all the time when you want to use it)

  • A little more information

    A little more information

    • Internet access

    • Limited internet access

      Limited internet access

    • We have pets

    • We are smokers

    • Can host families

  • Can host digital nomads

    Can host digital nomads

    Dialog internet connections works perfectly. No other mobile connection have sufficient signal to work if you work online.

  • Space for parking camper vans

    Space for parking camper vans

    Camper vans cannot reach the volunteer house unless parked on roadside which is about 800m away from the volunteer house.

  • Can possibly accept pets

    Can possibly accept pets

    Cats and dogs only

  • How many Workawayers can stay?

    How many Workawayers can stay?

    More than two

Host ref number: 671898286661

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