Frontier

Ellen was an outstanding member of staff who made me feel very welcoming. She has supported me throughout tough times and was a massive help when going up coastal due to my fear of heights. She not only does an incredible job of training, but the data collection and uploading the data was explained and was easy to do. She has been kind and she is very motivated to do the best she can in her work, while taking on other responsibilities which are not in her job role. I would like to thank Ellen for making my time here very enjoyable and she should be proud of the work she is conducting here!!

This year I decided to do something a little different for Christmas and help with some conservation work on the Osa peninsula Cost Rica. Instead of spending Christmas eve by the fire in Scotland, I was in the jungle looking for reptiles and amphibians and having close encounters with big cats (an ocelot!). This will be a Christmas I will always remember, and feel a sense of accomplishment having pushed myself far out of my comfort zone and done something valuable in the process.

Just doing my job to deliver this PSA... I have used frontier and without getting too long-winded STAY AWAY FROM FRONTIER. At best it's a completely disorganized, poorly functioning "volunteer service". At worst they are led by false advertising to steal your money. I sincerely believe it is the latter. I spent roughly 25 weeks in one form or another with Frontier. The London staff is laughable. They don't pay their field staff (some of which are terrible and others are good) or support the projects above the bare minimum. The living conditions are awful compared to how much you're paying and you can see the minimal investments into improving this.

The lodging/equipment was falling apart and constantly breaking. Also, don't expect the money to be used for the cause you actually signed up or care about. It's painfully obvious after my time with them that all the money goes to (misleading) advertising and lawyers (and I'm sure to the board members of this so-called "nonprofit" which is likely a front for tax purposes). They only survive by new volunteers getting tricked by their slick ads and website but be warned they will try to steal your money. I was swindled out of over 2000 USD. And they know the cost of trying to sue them is prohibitively expensive to try to do, and they purposely make you sign ambiguous contracts to make sure they don't have to refund you even if they cancel the project/trip on you. Bottom line. Avoid at all costs.

My recommendation, if you know where or what kind of project you'd like to do, search for local NGOs, etc. You'll save a ton of money, use your money to actually support your desired cause and it'll probably be much more functioning and pleasant. Also in regards to the terrible field staff, they hire anyone with or without any knowledge or credentials often. Had one "guide" that was harassing one of the other volunteers. Another that made up rules, at one point walked away while crying was just an absolute mess from day 1.

I found this week in terms of volunteering just a waste of time.
It was rather a cheap and not fun student holidays in a poorly maintened house. You will have a lot of free time and that house is far from everything. If you don't get a car, you will feel up your time with commuting by public transport.
We did very little of voluntering activities and the way everything was orginized was very strange if you think that you will be spending a week of your time to help a good change to happen. In principle out of 7 days: 2 are free, 1 is instructions and safety, and 4 are those lazy activity days.
Probably the most useful activity was beach cleaning. But very dumb as we were not allowed to talk to people unless they approach. We had t-shirts saying "Frontier", that says nothing to people, so it makes no sense to just clean a beach for 1 hour (the only activity for that day), tomorrow there will be more trash out there. But at least something happend: for that evening the beach was cleaner than before.
Next day we counted ships that were not behaving according to the rules. Just counted, didn't make pictures, didn't collect any prove that could be used later in order to talk to the government and force all ships to respect the rules. We were counting them for 1.5 hour with 17 people on top of the mounting. Do you need 17 people to count? No. Would that make more sense to make smaller groups and count for the day? Yes, but that is more difficult for the orginizers. So we counted them in turns, wrote down the numbers and then we were free again. One more increadible "volunteering" day was over.
The star activity of the program is to travel with tourist boats to picture dolphins. If you are lucky to get a place. Many times if the boat is full you will spontaneosly get another free day. Frontier guaranties that you will go on a boat at least once per week. All of us did 1 or 2 boat trips . On some of these boats you will be asked to serve food to tourists (hey plastic packages, bottles and cuttleries) and then help to clean. On the moment when they spot dolphins you are free to take pictures. Those pictures are meant to be used for a catalogue, BUT we had very unclear instruction on how to upload and catogolize those pictures that sooo many mistakes will be there, that it doesnt make sense either. Sad. Many of the participants just didn't do it at all, as it was not clear how to do it.
And so on, I dont want to make a discription of every detail that could be improved and waste more of anyones time, I can not recommend Frontier at all. I actually think that they harm the idea of volunteering, since after participating in such a program you will doubt that this type of "holidays" is something for you.

I signed up for the healthcare programme in Madagascar for the month of February. My experience did not live up to this promise. I signed up for a two week project paying £399. They then paid an additional £200 to bring my volunteering forward a week. In the first 7 days i was at the project i spent in total 5 hours teaching English at a primary school, 6 hours teaching English at a youth club and 2 hours helping out at an orphanage I.e. just 13 hours in total volunteering and precisely zero hours spent as a ‘healthcare volunteer’. The lack of volunteering opportunities (in healthcare and more generally) was explained by the local staff as being down to the lack of a ‘Community Coordinator’. We were given a Forest Coordinator who was unfamiliar with the Community Projects and spoke neither Malagasi or French and as such was unable to communicate with locals to organise volunteering. An example of this disorganisation was on the Tuesday she took me to the hospital but there was no doctor to meet them or anyone expecting them so they returned immediately to the Community house.
Not only was the actual volunteering disappointing but the living conditions were diabolical. I slept on a foam mattress that has disintegrated so it effectively wasn't there. The roof was leaking and in order to flush the loo you had to put your hands in the cistern! DISGUSTING!! Furthermore the food budget per day was £1 which was not even enough for 3 meals a day which was what the website guaranteed me.
Please take this as a warning NOT to use the FRONTIER.