Madagascar Volunteer Projects
In Madagascar, we have 6 volunteering and cultural immersion projects available. You can choose your own project, and combine different projects and create your own tailor-made unique program. Volunteering in Madagascar is an incredible experience that can teach you a lot about the country and its culture.
You can start every Monday, and you can join from 2 weeks up to 8 weeks.
On the Monday of your first week, there is an orientation by our local team, so you can get comfortable with the surroundings as well as the local culture.
Unique Cultural Experiences
Sustainable Worthwhile Projects
Receive Top Quality Support
Meet International Volunteers
Arrival
Your airport pickup is included. You will be met upon arrival on Sunday. You will be picked up by the local team at Fascene Airport (NOS) and transferred to your accommodation to meet the other international volunteers. We will provide you with full arrival time, plus all details, including contact details when you book your program. Do not book your flight until you have received the arrival details from us.
Orientation
On the Monday of your first week, there is an orientation by your coordinator, so you can get comfortable with the surroundings as well as the local culture.
Accommodation & Meals
Your accommodation is included from Sunday until Saturday morning of your last week. The accommodation is in shared rooms with other volunteers. Throughout the journey, you will be accommodated in single-gender dorm-style rooms. The rooms will be shared with other volunteers. You will stay in a volunteer house together with the other participants.
Your meals are included during your program. There are 3 meals included per day from Monday to Friday, and 2 meals per day on weekends.
Location
The projects are in Nosy-Be. Nosy Be is an island off Madagascar’s northwestern coast. In the southeast, the forests of Lokobe Reserve shelter chameleons, geckos and frogs. The capital, known as Hell-Ville, has French colonial buildings and a covered market. Lemuria Land is home to a variety of lemurs, plus reptiles. Also in the park is a 19th-century distillery still used to extract essential oils from the native ylang-ylang tree.
The Projects in Madagascar
Culture Week
The best way to become familiarized with customs, surroundings, atmosphere, and more of this rich and colorful country. You will dive into the local culture and learn the Malagasy language.
Discover the charm of the city, visit colorful markets, explore the city and taste exotic and cosmopolitan cuisines. Walk around the foot of Mont Passotand hike to its peak, tour in Hell – Ville, and much more.
Nosy Be Culture Week gives you an original experience of the Malagasylifestyle in Nosy Be. Your week will be filled with trips to various cultural and natural hotspots in Nosy Be.
The purpose of this program is to help you get an understanding of the manners, norms, and etiquette that are inherent in Malagasysocietyas well as show you around and introduce you to your new surroundings, helping you feel right at home in this warm and friendly community.
Schedule
Monday
You will have an introduction to our team in Madagascar, exposure to our Code of Conduct, House Rules, Liability Waiver, and Evaluation Forms. Also, you will get to know about Madagascar and Nosy Be, the country and its culture. After having lunch you will walk around the foot Mont Passotand hike to its peak for sunset.
Tuesday
After breakfast, you will walk from AMBATOZAVAVY to MARODOKA across NOSY BE’s rural areas. You will enjoy a picnic lunch and join the local dance and have a pastry class afterward. In the evening join the Malagasylanguage lessons and learn some basics to make you feel comfortable communicating with the locals.
Wednesday
On Wednesday morning, you will visit a place where a banyan tree grows. It’s where people from NOSY BE and even the mainland make sacrifices to their ancestors to ask for blessings.
When their “prayers” are answered, they come back to this Sacred Tree to wrap it in red and white linen.
In the afternoon, you will walk through Hell-Ville. Visiting the marketplace, discovering the old part of the town where the King lives, enjoying the colonial architecture of the housesat Court de Hell.
Thursday
In the morning, join a painting class with a local traditional painter who will guide you. After lunch, you will continue your language lessons through the afternoon.
Friday
On Friday morning, you will join Ampasipohy by car and by pirogue after. Once there, you will walk to the LOKOBE Community Forest’s entrance spotting lemur species, birds and reptiles.
After lunch, you will go either to fish with a local fisherman or to the field. As for the former, you will discover the local way of fishing. For the latter, you will work in vanilla, pepper, or pineapple fields.
* The schedule can be changed and/or amended depending on weather conditions, local conditions, and unforeseen circumstances. Also during holidays, the schedule can be interrupted.
Teaching Project
Teach basic conversational English to children from different age groups from rural villages in Nosy Be.
You will be teaching and supporting the teaching staff at a state-managed school. You can also assist with extracurricular activities and inspire them to achieve their full potential and broaden their perspectives through creatively structured lessons.
Most people in Madagascarcan’tafford travel, and in villages like Tsararano Ambony, there is little chance of contact with the outside world. You, a foreign teacher, enable the students to form relationships with someone from a different background and culture. On the other hand, the local teachers can also learn new and up-to-date teaching methods and techniques from you. You will mainly assist the regular school teachers in the school and therefore even without a formal teaching background, you can participate in this project.
You will teach children from different age groups with different learning capacities. You are free to use your own teaching materials and methods in teaching. You can use the coursebook as a reference or educate children through conversation with spoken English.
During your time here you can teach them different subjects such as mathematics, history, science, geography, computer, technologies, music, arts and crafts, different educational games, personal development, environment awareness, general health and safety, and so on. Higher education in Madagascar is given in French and Malagasy. It’s also vitally important that children learn English as well because Nosy Be is also one of the most famous tourist destinations in Madagascar.
Schedule
Monday to Friday
Primarily teach English, but also teach drama, games, music, art, and foreign languages.
Encourage children in academic work and promote the all-around development of the child.
Assist teachers and other staff.
Create teaching plans.
* The schedule can be changed and/or amended depending on weather conditions, local conditions, and unforeseen circumstances. Also during holidays, the schedule can be interrupted.
Mangrove Forest Conservation
Get on to this exciting program and get involved in the conservation of endemic species of flora and fauna!
This amazing island offers you a wonderful and unique experience in conserving this island’s precious ecosystem particularly mangrove forest. Take part in various conservation activities which we have put in place wherein you can use your own initiative, research, time and effort in expressing your concern for the environment; natural, man made and cultural.
In this exciting program, participants will be involved in important work to maintain and preserve Madagascar’s wildlife heritage through mangrove conservation. ESPACE ZENY is a cultural and ecotourism site justa10 a minute’s drive from HELL-VILLE and 20 minute walk thereafter.
This site is bordered by a mangrove forest and consists of a center dedicated to training youth – from rural communities in Nosy Be and from the mainland – about professional organic farming. As a conservation participant, you will first learn about the mangrove forest in Nosy Be, its richness, uses, and threats. You will first work on designing an environmental teaching manual for children. After this you can begin our community environmental education outreach program, helping to highlight the importance of the mangroves and their sustainability to the local communities and schools.
You will work on a mangrove forest seedbed. Young plants will firstly be used to reforest showcase site and living classroom for local children.
Schedule
Monday to Friday
After meeting with ESPACE ZENY’s team and getting a brief introduction on history and taboos, your main tasks throughout the week will be:
Working on the mangrove regeneration program.
Setting up seedbed.
Drawing sketch about mangrove forest conservation.
Leading mangrove-oriented environmental education for surrounding children.
Working on a mangrove sustainable exploitation program.
All activities are supported by the local staff who are on hand to assist you with the training you may need.
Daily activities will be planned by our coordinator on-site as per requirements and needs.
* The schedule can be changed and/or amended depending on weather conditions, local conditions and unforeseen circumstances. Also during holidays the schedule can be interrupted.
Kindergarten
Working a local kindergarten in Nosy Be and teaching the children basic English in an informal and fun way!
Kindergarten teaching gives you the chance to encourage children to learn and grow creatively. Apart from teaching them language and communication skills, you have a unique opportunity to help improve their life skills well. As you spend time teaching the local children, you will be embraced by the local community and become an important part of it.
The kids at the kindergarten are right at the start of their school careers and the chance to start learning English at such an early age will prove invaluable for them further on. Like in kindergartens throughout the world, the teaching is informal as the children will want to play with you more than be ‘taught’. However, just by getting them enthused about coming to school, and giving them some very basic English phrases such as simple greetings, you may as well have sown the seeds of lifelong learning habit. The children will all be excited to see you and welcome you exceptionally, partly due to the natural and genuine friendliness of the people of these villages but also due to the fact that you will be one of the few foreigners they have ever met, up close!
Schedule
Monday to Friday
After breakfast, you will be teaching pupils from 2 to 3 years old in school for 3 hours.
Then, you will come back to our Center where you will find your delicious lunch ready.
After lunch, you will go to NAZAREANA School at 14:30 and teach and interact with the pupils from 4 to 7 years old for 2 hours.
And on Wednesday when you will also interact with the teachers for about an hour.
* The schedule can be changed and/or amended depending on weather conditions, local conditions and unforeseen circumstances. Also during holidays the schedule can be interrupted.
Lemur Experience
Get on to this exciting program and get involved in the conservation of endemic animal species!
This amazing island offers you a wonderful and unique experience in conserving the island’s precious fauna. You will be taking part in the conservation efforts of this beautiful docile creature and in various conservation activities which we have put in place.
In this exciting program, participants will be involved in important work to maintain and preserve Madagascar’s wildlife heritage, by
working with a private lemur species rehabilitation center. As a conservation participant, you will first learn about Madagascar’s
flagship species especially the ones which are endemic to this part of Madagascar, with other representatives of unique fauna like the
Madagascar fish-eagle and Ploughshare tortoise.
You will be involved in preparing food according to the diet chart, preparing the food involves chopping vegetables and fruits for the
lemurs’ in the morning and assisting the local staff and vet with the health checks which take place once a month. You will also have
the opportunity to assist the local staff in caring for other species such as tortoises, chameleons, and other species residing in the park.
During the afternoon, you will be involved in mangrove conservation activities wherein your presence will be required along with our coordinators to plant mangrove saplings, prepare saplings at the plant nursery, nurture the saplings and clean the mangrove area from pollutant materials.
Schedule
Monday to Friday
On Monday, after breakfast, you will visit Lemuria Land Park and meet the local staff.
Throughout the week, at 7:00 am, we will travel to lemur park and your work will start at about 8:30 am. You will begin with cleaning the enclosures, there will be a 15-minute short break followed by collecting fruits, vegetables, and green leaves for the lemurs.
You will also get to prepare their feed and feed them. Your daily work at the park ends at 12 noon. Then you will return to the center for lunch.
After lunch, you will proceed with our coordinator to the mangrove conservation area to take part in the daily conservation activities at the plant nursery and as well as at the mangrove forest.
Daily activities will be planned by our coordinator on-site as per the requirements and needs.
* The schedule can be changed and/or amended depending on weather conditions, local conditions and unforeseen circumstances. Also during holidays the schedule can be interrupted.
Construction and Renovation
This beautiful island nation is the best place to work on our construction and renovation projects.
Come to explore this country and participate along with the local people to renovate, build, and beautify their schools to create
aesthetic institutions which will add value to the quality of education of the children. To nurture your latent talent towards creative usage of local resources in providing a better landscape for the local community.
The Construction and Renovation project Nosy Be supports small communities on and around the island. It aims to build and renovate school buildings that are essential for the growth and development of the children along with the local community. You will work under a local coordinator who will provide you with guidance and training to work alongside the local families and other participants.
The project involves hard physical and manual labor since you will be laying bricks, doing carpentry, painting, waterproofing, laying tiles, landscaping/gardening, as well as, improving the community’s hygiene and sanitation facilities.
Schedule
Monday to Friday
You will begin with a meeting with the coordinator, discussing what is required during your stay on the project. The focus is on light construction work and you will be expected to help paint the school buildings, make tables and chairs, construct and renovate the playground, make pathways, build toilets, repair the school wall and help build new classrooms.
Construction and renovation work is available in more places when required in the local area.
* The schedule can be changed and/or amended depending on weather conditions, local conditions and unforeseen circumstances. Also during holidays the schedule can be interrupted.
Prices
2 Weeks: 870 Euro
3 Weeks: 1099 Euro
4 Weeks: 1335 Euro
+1 Week: 235 Euro
* For the culture week, mangrove, and construction project there is an extra fee per week of 35 Euro
* For the Lemur experience there is an extra fee per week of 225 Euro
Our base prices are in Euro, but you can pay in Euro, US$ and Pounds. The prices will be at the currency exchange rate from the Euro at the time of payment. Click here to check the prices in your currency.
With us there are NO Registration Fees, NO administration fees, and you can easily combine the different projects
What’s included:
Volunteer program
Accommodation (shared room)
Meals
24/7 in-country support
In-country program orientation
Pre-departure support
Airport pick-up
Not included:
A 5% international banking fee is added.
Visa, flights, travel insurance, vaccinations, criminal background check, Covid tests (if required), transport to your project and back to the accommodation every day, return trip to the airport, transfers between different locations.
Requirements to join:
Volunteers need to be minimum 18 years old
Volunteers are required to provide a criminal background check
Volunteers are required to have volunteer travel insurance
Volunteers might need to have a Covid test done before departure (we will inform you of this)
Book your place in 3 steps :
1. Apply: Fill out the Application Form (click below) and we will let you know if you are accepted within 24 hours.
2. Deposit: Once accepted you pay your deposit (200 Euro or 215 US$) to reserve you place in the program.
3. Remaining Fees: You pay the remaining fees of your program, minus the deposit which you already paid, six weeks before your start date of your program.