Gorilla Highlands volunteers building the organisation, improving cooking skills at Lake Bunyonyi, doing multimedia and teaching Batwa “Pygmies” English
Introduction
Wish to contribute your energy and skills to what Gorilla Highlands Experts do? Volunteer work is at the centre of our concept and everyone is welcome, from Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and abroad. Gorilla Highlands volunteering is about mixing international people and young East Africans, making small teams and learning from each other.
There are various volunteering options and volunteer jobs available:
Volunteering Options
• Guest volunteer: Do you feel like enjoying Uganda’s gorgeous Lake Bunyonyi and Rwanda’s gateway to mountain gorillas without any obligations? Don’t know if you can commit just yet? Simply stay at Edirisa on Lake Bunyonyi and/or in at a our homestay in Musanze Town as a paying customer, and we will see where you can chip in. You can request the status of a guest volunteer or a specialist later on. Oh, and you can also do Learn From Africa without any need to commit!
We offer affordable accommodation, priced the same at Lake Bunyonyi and in Musanze:
camping in own tent: USD 4
camping in our fully-equipped tent: USD 6
dorm bed: USD 8
single/double room: USD 24
• Core volunteer: You want to have a life outside of Gorilla Highlands volunteering? Believe that part-timing would be the best fit? No problem. As long as we can count on your help for a minimum of 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, we are happy to give you serious accommodation and food discounts. We do, however, expect you to go through 4 days of Learn From Africa first.
The longer your period of commitment, the more you will save. These are our daily discounted charges for accommodation and staff meals:
• Specialist volunteer: Wanna go the whole way and become our staff member? Ready to put in at least 50 hours a week in your field of expertise? As long as you have specialist skills or local knowledge that we need, we will be glad to accommodate you and feed you free of charge. We still highly recommend that you participate in the Learn From Africa program as it will let you maximise your experience and contribution, but that is not a must.
• Online volunteer: Can’t join us in Uganda or Rwanda? That’s unfortunate but it doesn’t mean that you can’t get involved! From social media marketing to graphic design to web development, a lot of essential work can be done from anywhere in the world. We would be thrilled to have you on (our Trello) board
Volunteer Jobs
This list of jobs is only intended to give you some idea of what is possible; it is not complete in any way. Ideas and personal projects are welcome but they need to be solid enough to assure sustainability even after the initiator has left.
Multimedia
– work on the next edition of the Pocket Treasure
– help resurrect the SEE AFRICA BREATHE AFRICA podcast
– get involved with research and design of maps
– prepare content for social networks
– become our photographer/videographer
Promotion
– organise the next Silverchef cooking competition and other promotional events
– regularly meet existing and potential partners inside and outside the region
– train our partners in social media
– distribute the Pocket Treasure
Primary School Activities
– prepare school workshops for children (cultural exchange, hygiene, …)
– organise non-school events for children (including weekend ones)
– lead physical exercise activities
– develop children’s reading culture
– help with career guidance
Secondary/University School Activities
– give us a hand with Illumineers (especially with program management)
Organisational
– train staff (first aid, cooking, IT, construction, …)
– help with accounting, budgeting and planning
– develop new business ideas
– assist with Illumineers fundraising
– set up a volunteer wiki database
– develop and beautify the compound
– introduce new facilities (like a rope swing)
– plant herbs and vegetables
– create a recipe book that effectively uses local ingredients
– build a stone based water purifier
– start (cray)fish farming
– teach swimming
– build an artificial island
Apply
Please use or Contact Us page to begin the process.
photo: Marcus Westberg, Miha Logar, Anika Utke, David Esteban
Our Stories From Volunteer Life:
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Kampala, Here I Come!
After my first month of exotic but basic living on the shores of Lake Bunyonyi I was ready for a deeper dive into Ugandan life. I’d occasionally visited the nearby town of Kabale for my supermarket needs or a change of environment, but I wanted to explore a bit. As someone who is used to…
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First GHE Interns’ First Ugandan Impressions
We are Mari and Niels, 25 and 23 years old and both students of International Cooperation at UCLL in Belgium, ready for our Ugandan adventure at Lake Bunyonyi. These are our first impressions from the country, after a week of acclimatisation in Entebbe and the first week on the ground at the lake. Mari: After a long but comfortable flight…
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Behind the Scenes of the Groundbreaking Pocket Guide
We feel that we have something world-class, a mini-magazine that has to stop being a shooting star and become the sun.
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Fearless Batwa “Pygmies” Begin to Learn English
Norah (see the video above) was one of the 10 Batwa “Pygmies” of Rwamahano who got a Batwa Community English Class certificate at Edirisa today. In other words, they completed an introduction to the English language to help them with their guiding and with the Gorilla Highlands Batwa Jamboree that they are co-organising (April 2019…
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Good Kind of Crazy: Volunteering and Hiking in Uganda and Rwanda
This has been an American year for the Gorilla Highlands team. The fourth US specialist volunteer of 2017, Benjamin Blayne Dawson from Florida, is flying home at this very moment, after volunteering in Uganda and Rwanda for two months. Benji B. has spent 90% of his time at Lake Bunyonyi, however, he has also visited…
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Behind the Scenes of Our Social Media Photo Month
June will be a month to savour on the Gorilla Highlands social media: each day will feature a richly explained photo moment from the heartbeat of Uganda and Rwanda. No matter whether you follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest, you will find them under the #PulseofUgandaRwanda hashtag. Be social, our friends, and spread…
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People of the Gorilla Highlands Are Characters
Before my arrival to volunteer in Rwanda and Uganda there seemed to be one phrase that I was told that hung over me: The people of the Gorilla Highlands are characters. I didn’t know quite what this meant at the time, but now this one statement has defined my experience. And so, the only way I can…
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9 Observations of Kigali, Rwanda, by an Expert Africa Amateur
Hello to all, my name is Anika Utke. I am an eighteen year old American and the newest addition to the Gorilla Highlands team. My life one year ago is unrecognizable from my life today. I was a kid in high school that had never been out of the country before and was spending countless…
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Background Story: Global Team behind the Video Map
Over three years, sleeping in grass-thatched huts and working in mud structures whose glass-less windows open towards a magnificent mountain lake, or from their homes across the globe, a small group of expert volunteers worked on a project like no other, the Gorilla Highlands Video Map. They cared about an outstanding region in the middle…