Volunteering for Mountain Gorillas

Volunteering for Mountain Gorillas

Valerie Fox wrote:
I want to see the Mountain gorillas in Rwanda. Ideally, I would like to volunteer Directly to help them, and see them more than just 1-2 days as is offered one most the tour trips. I am an RN and could volunteer in this capacity in order to stay longer and possibly have a chance to see gorillas more than once. When is best time to go? Who can I contact so I am not paying some tourist company thousands and not directly helping.

Valerie, thanks for your email and I hope you’ll soon find yourself in that wonderland! And please read my blog, today, which was motivated by your request.

I have promised my friends in Rwanda that I won’t refer any such requests unless you can guarantee a half year commitment. If you can, let me know, and then there will be a rigorous vetting process to see if your available experiences and credentials can be of some use.

And as my blog, today, explains, I personally believe that the greatest conservation act that has saved the mountain gorillas is simply the tourists going there.

It’s hard to give you a good “best time” answer, because the weather is changing so dramatically in East and Central Africa as a result of global warming. In the past, the heavy rain months of March-May were best avoided, but this year for example, March was dry and July was extremely wet. The fact is that in a highland rain forest it rains almost all the time, anyway, so anyone traveling there at any time must be prepared for rain. And other than that, note that 56 intrepid travelers go up every single day of the year!

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