VOLUNTEER

Bringing Value To The Table!

Over the last decade, India seems to have become quite popular to visit. Some come by as tourists, spending a few days to a month at various destinations and take back experiences and memories. Others are here for the long term, working in India’s rapidly expanding corporate realm. To me, the most interesting group is the young ‘gap year student’ or ‘student volunteer’. There is a growing number of young folks who spend a month to a year working on various projects or at NGO facilities.

From interacting with a few volunteers, I realized that there were a couple of things that didn’t quite work for them. Almost all of the volunteers took back good experiences and had a great time. They made new friends and grew their networks. However, many felt that their time here lacked purpose and didn’t feel a sense of achievement in the end. They also ‘would have liked’ more structure to their time here’. 

In addition to this, I also observed that most volunteer agencies charge quite a high fee to place volunteers at these destinations or facilities and don’t offer the volunteer much in return. In fact, the facilities don’t get paid all that much either. 

The Gerry Martin Project intends to correct this.  We are working hard to try and make the volunteer experience much more structured, also creating research projects for those interested. 

We are also building our activity base so that volunteers have much more to do at the places we put them. I think one of the most important changes we’re making is that we’re making things cheaper for the volunteer as well as a lot more beneficial to the facility. 

The biggest shift, however, is the perspective with which we are viewing volunteers now. They are no longer simply revenue generators who need to be ‘fit’ into some work or the other but ore a valuable resource base of skill, manpower and perspective. This realization has helped us take the time to get to know our volunteers better. We try to understand their skills and expectations and then create a structure to their time here, optimizing not only their learning but also the value that they bring to the table.


In particular is the work that we hope to achieve with students who come over with the view to build their experience bank before university or those that want to do projects for credits or curricular dissertations. We use our network of scientists and researchers to help design the project and in ideal cases, collaborate in the project. The intention is for this to result in publishable papers and notes. Our first project will start in July on Amphibians in Agumbe! We have been discussing and designing the project for the past couple of months and have brought the volunteer in touch with a researcher here to work together on this project. They plan to submit their paper by the end of 2010.


After a few initial hiccups, I think we’re ready to bring in many volunteers through 2010. We’ve got the facilities set with our collaborations with The Agumbe Rainforest Research Station, Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and The Andaman and Nicobar Environmental Team. Through the year, we should be able to finalise collaborations with four or five other good facilities around the country.


In time, I’d like this to become an empowering process that enables organizations and individuals working in the field of wildlife and environmental conservation to continue the good work. 

IF you are interested in spending some time in our program, do write in to gerry@gerrymartin.in