The Great Projects

Unpack your initiative, courage and capacity in a rainforest jungle, coral reef, coastal beach or up a mountain and travel responsibly or work abroad as a responsible volunteer, to effect positive change to some of the most vulnerable animals people, and habitats south of the planet. Traveling to one of our Great Projects is an experience or "taster" of what it would be like to work with animals in exotic locations. Don the kakis of a conservationist, share your rice bowl with like-minded adventurers and immerse yourself responsibly into a meaningful project abroad. You can choose to collect data on migration patterns of the pygmy elephant along the jungle river. Make games to enrich orangutans in forest rehab centres. Plant trees for sea turtles on remote sandy beaches. Count dolphins and monitor whales in open seas. We have a world of great projects to choose from during your gapyear, sabbatical, career break or adventure holiday. Join our volunteer and adventure travel programmes in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The world is in your hands now.

The Great Projects aims to promote the importance of setting standards in endangered animal welfare and conservation in the tourism sector. A collection of award winning projects or inspiring tales of unsung hero's in animal conservation, are used to showcase working models of animal conservation tourism around the world. Flagship endangered species, such as orangutans, are used to explain the complex interrelationship between humans and the environment, allowing you to relate to problems and engage in solutions. Experiences, feedback and open dialogue of everyday people visiting these project sites can help shape our service. Charity partners fundraising for these animals are invited to help create protocols in "elephant tourism", "orangutan tourism", turtle tourism" etc.

On a Great Project you will find that more often or not there is a conservation project built around a given species with the aim of protecting it. The tourism programme is designed around the project to drive much needed funds to it. This tourism is in its most compassionate form and you can use your travel to express your responsibility to an endangered species or habitat. This makes The Great Projects a seriously good way to travel and make a difference abroad.

The Great Projects is an award winning responsible tourism social enterprise. The award was the Virgin Holiday's Responsible Tourism Awards 2009 and we were highly commended winners in the Best operator in conservation category. We won the award for our flagship volunteer project, the Great Orangutan Project (www.orangutanproject.com). The Great Orangutan Project is a collection of orangutan conservation projects throughout Malaysian and Indonesian Borneo and is now the number one company sending volunteers abroad to experience conservation of orangutans. On one of our more popular volunteer programmes in Malaysia, 121 of our volunteers brought more money to conservation of orangutans than 95,000 tourists on orangutan holidays booked with local and international agents, in the same period at the same destination.

With 25% of the total revenue of WOX donated back into animal projects, our social enterprise model lends itself as a showcase and an example. Organisations similar to our ethos and practice migrate onto TheGreat Projects.com website to showcase and invite everyday people to connect with endangered animals in a responsible, sustainable and collaborative way. Helping to save endangered animals is on our daily to do list. Take a note. Make it yours.

Responsible volunteering lies at the heart of TheGreatProjects.com. We believe its the key to achieving sustainable outcomes and maintaining successful volunteering projects. We strive to apply our passion and knowledge of responsible volunteering to all our operations, encouraging our partners and volunteers to do the same.