Botany and Gardening Volunteers, Maldives

Do you enjoy working with plants and gardening? Would you like an opportunity to work with tropical plants whilst meeting a lot of new and exciting people? We are working on improving the beauty of Naifaru island by establishing public green areas. Areas where people can meet and socialize. People of the community are currently forced to meet in uninviting areas such as open squares or sports areas like football or volleyball courts.

Of course, creating green spaces requires someone to plan, plant and care for the plants, and to educate the island community on future care and management. As a resident botanist/gardener, you will be tasked with doing trips to nearby uninhabited islands to collect and bring home trees and samples to be planted throughout the island. Your main focus will be on public parks. You will be working closely with community representatives as well as other volunteers such as those in construction, grant writing/fundraising and community organizing projects. The exact projects you will be working on will be determined prior to and upon your arrival, in collaboration with staff and local community representatives. Once a project is worked out you will be given relatively free reigns to plan and execute it. Finally, the botanist/gardener programme also has a branch which focuses on building awareness within the community in terms of growing and treating household vegetables such as cabbage, lettuce and spinach etc.

Location

A geological eccentricity nestled in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the Maldives are a series of ancient coral reefs that grew up around the sides of towering prehistoric volcanoes. These immense structures have long since sunk into the ocean, leaving behind coral islands of incredible natural beauty, from the modernity of Male to the idyllic paradise of the Southern Atolls.

The Maldives have bright blue skies, all-year sunshine and fantastic diving and snorkelling in lagoons the temperature of bathwater. The country embraces travellers from around the world but maintains a deep Muslim faith. The Maldives has a tropical climate with warm temperatures year-round and a great deal of sunshine. The weather is determined largely by the monsoon seasons.

Accommodation

Volunteers on this project stay together in our shared volunteer guest house. The guest house comes with a living room with comfortable furniture, laundry facilities, TV, a large bookshelf and a fridge. All rooms in the house come equipped with aircon, fans and wi-fi internet. The standard room is a two to three-person shared (single-sex) room with its own Western-style bathroom.

We provide 3 meals per day for all volunteers. We will also organize for volunteers to eat together at local restaurants with the staff from time to time as a social event and order the food in advance if needed, but volunteers will need to pay either in dollars or local currency during their stay for any extra food expenses on top of this e.g. snacks.

Project Dates

You can join this project for 2 weeks or longer all year round, starting on any Thursday. Please note this project is unavailable in July