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Our placements are designed to immerse you in a different culture, living and working with local people. There’s plenty to gain personally from this challenge – a sense of achievement, broader horizons and some wonderful memories. But we make sure that local people benefit too.
Meeting local needs - The whole project is geared towards helping the local community. Romania is not wealthy and institutions like the bear sanctuary rely on volunteers. We have been running programmes in this area for 10 years and have long-standing relationships with local people. This means we have a good idea of where help is needed, and can ensure volunteers make a real contribution.
The project also helps the local economy. Our participants spend money on food and leisure; we pay rent and employ a local Romanian as our representative. In addition, we donate money regularly to the various projects in response to their needs.
Cultural sensitivity - Our pre-departure briefing includes a special session entitled ‘Responsible Tourism’ where we discuss cultural differences and sensitivities as well as advising volunteers on appropriate conduct. People are given a Romanian language course and briefed on what is considered polite in terms of eating, greeting and dressing.
Environment - Our company takes an environmentally responsible attitude towards recycling and reusing of waste products. We also offset carbon emissions in our office (gas, electricity, business mileage) and encourage all participants to offset their flight emissions via a carbon offset scheme run in conjunction with Tree Aid. We also offer the option of traveling there by train to cut down on carbon emissions. Our volunteers are given a pre-departure briefing where they are encouraged to minimise waste and to live in a way that will not have a detrimental effect on the country.
We invite every traveler who books a vacation via us to send in a review. Because we don't run the vacations they're completely independent and unedited... remember to read between the lines though, as two people on the same vacation can have different views!
