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Vegan Animal Sanctuary in Portugal, need Kitchen Hand! :)

4.5
(8 reviews)8

The experience

We are a couple of animal rights activists running a vegan activist non-profit NGO in Portugal.

As part of our organization's work we run an Animal Sanctuary where we have our multispecies family, and where we accommodate animals that we rescue from abuse, abandonment or death permanently or temporarily until we find them suitable homes where they can live forever safe and loved. We have now over 150 animals.

What you offer

30 hours of help per week

Gardening: Help grow plants and cultivate gardens

Cooking: Choose the menu, pick ingredients and cook delicious dishes.

What you get

2 days off per week

Shared Dorm: You will have a bed in a shared room, which means you will share the same room with other travelers.

Tent: You will sleep in a tent at a camping site.

Breakfast: You are entitled to a free breakfast, every day of your stay.

Lunch: You are entitled to a free lunch, every day of your stay.

Dinner: You are entitled to a free dinner, every day of your stay.

Get free drinks or beverages.: Drink up! Get free and tasty drinks for yourself.

Bikes at your disposal: You can use our bikes any time you want.

Use our equipped kitchen: Feel free to use our kitchen and make your own delicious food.

Requirements

Fluent English

Between 18 and 40 years old

Welcomes solo volunteers, couples, and partners of volunteers

What's not included

Flights, Travel Insurance, Internal Transportation and Visa

Program Details

We are looking to have between 5 to 8 volunteers at any given time to help us 5 hours daily, 5 days a week with animal care and tasks related to construction work, general maintenance of the spaces and our food garden.

Important to underline that we are an animal sanctuary, we take care of living beings, not things, so it won’t be like going to a hostel where you clean a room and you’re done with the task.

Doing volunteering here is a live in experience and if you are present and someone needs helps you can’t ignore just because it’s past your “working hours”.

Only people that truly care deeply about animals should come to us.

Activities & Shift

This is the home of the animals and we are all guests to their home.

The humans that come to us will share the spaces always with animals from other species, meaning, for example, in the kitchen there will be cats, or dogs, or baby lambs or baby pigs, or all of them together.

What we mean by this is that whoever comes to volunteer with us needs to feel comfortable with the fact that we practice and live equality within all species.

We are looking for volunteers that would be responsible for helping out with animal care - there is a lot of small things to take in and we prefer that the animals also have time to relate to the person caring for them daily so 1 month period is the minimum stay, gardening, and small repairs.

Rules

In order for you to be happy here you will need to be a practical person that doesn't get tired very quickly and is ready to put an extra effort into helping animals.

Farm life is not for everyone, volunteering with us is an amazing experience but only if you truly, TRULY, love animals and understand fully the amount of daily work involved in caring for them. Farms are not apartments in cities where everything is sterilised.

We have fleas around the areas, and we need to put product on a daily or weekly basis, it’s nature, we can’t eliminate all parasites, sometimes it rains and everything gets muddy, you will get dirty, it will be super hot during the summer months and it will be tough to endure, you will be in contact with life in its rawest form, and for us that’s why all of it is so magical.