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Help care for monkeys in the Ecuadorian Amazon!

5.0
(3 reviews)3

The experience

Join us at Paseo de los Monos and play an active role in wildlife conservation! Your tasks include preparing and distributing food for rescued animals, monitoring their health, cleaning enclosures, and assisting with enrichment activities. You'll also help maintain trails and gardens while working alongside the center's biologists and veterinarians. After a rewarding day, relax by the river, enjoy group meals, or unwind in the common areas.

What you offer

32 hours of help per week

Animal Care: Help look after and take care of animals.

Painting & Decorating: Help with painting or decorating the property facilities.

Building & Repairing: Help with a wide range of repairs or building.

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

Additional fee required

Amount: US$ 150 Per week

Fee pays for: Benefits for travelers and Donation to project

Description: The extra fee helps cover the cost of your accommodation and meals during your stay, ensuring you have a comfortable and nourishing experience while volunteering. Plus, 30% of this fee goes directly into supporting the conservation project—helping restore local ecosystems, protect wildlife, and create a lasting impact in the community. By contributing, you're actively investing in a more sustainable future!

What you get

1 day 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.

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.

Free Laundry: You can use our laundry room freely.

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

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

Certificate: Get a certificate of completion after you finish your experience.

Fast Internet Access: High-speed internet for you to work remotely

Requirements

Over 18 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 always looking for motivated volunteers who would love to help the animals at the center. It would be a pleasure to welcome you. The project is located in Puyo, in 2 hectares of primary forest and we welcome injured and orphaned animals, mostly monkeys. We have about 150 animals with seven species of monkeys, costis or cuchuchos, parrots, turtles, wild rodents and pigs and the first serpentarium in the province for the rescue of snakes.

The "El Paseo de los Monos" shelter functions as an adoption center: orphans are placed in family groups according to species. The objective is to transfer the monkey troops to a virgin forest land near Sangay National Park with the corresponding research and previous studies carried out by scientists.

We have a great dream, to acquire an extension of territory, free of hunters, deforestation, invasion and urban growth. The chronogram is as follows:

By the land we have already visited.
Build infrastructure for the animals and the people responsible for monitoring the project.
Mobilization of the animals.
Follow-up and monitoring of the troops by scientists.
This center will be designed to receive all types of animals living in zoos and dispersed centers or other wildlife centers.

FIRST DAYS

Upon arrival, we will welcome you and introduce you to the animals, the parks (most of the animals are not kept in cages but in large native forest parks) and show you how the house works. We will provide you with all the necessary working tools for the different tasks and you will be able to train with the working staff to perform your tasks. In addition, we will introduce you to our rules and regulations regarding animal interactions. The safety of volunteers, staff and animals is of the utmost importance to us, as we work with wild an

Activities & Shift

A typical day at the "Paseo de los Monos".

7:30 A wake up you will have coffee, bread, jam, eggs, yogurt, granola so you can prepare your breakfast.
8:00 am: The center staff arrives and the day begins.
8:10 am: Prepare and distribute food for the animals and check their health. Check the water for the animals.
10:30 am: Enrichment activities in the animal enclosures, creating games and making supplementary diets, providing medicine for needed cases. Cleaning of trails, care of the gardens and different spaces.
13:00 h: Lunch time, the center staff prepares a delicious meal.
14:00 h: Prepare and distribute the second meal, the snack for the animals.
15:30 h: Different activities prepared with the working staff, coordination with the center's biologist and veterinarian.
16:00 h: Cleaning of animal enclosures.
17:00 h: End of the day.
Now you can enjoy the natural river, take your best pictures, relax in the billiard room, watch a movie in the TV room,

The kitchen is open, you can prepare your dinner, in team with the other volunteers and teach us your best recipes.

Other different activities will be carried out according to the work itinerary elaborated by the working staff.

Food for the animals is purchased from local people and volunteers are responsible for carrying different fruits to the bodega (the room where the food is prepared). This may involve carrying whole bushels of bananas, large boxes of papaya and other items that are relatively heavy.