PMGY - Volunteer in Sri Lanka from $270

Having just returned from 2 weeks with PMGY in Ambalangoda, Sri Lanka, I cannot recommend this program enough! I signed up having never previously travelled alone and found that PMGY thoroughly prepared me for my trip, carefully responding to all of my pre-departure enquiries and providing all necessary information in their specialised handbook. I felt 100% secure arriving in Sri Lanka even after a delayed flight; the staff make sure you are looked after in all stages of your stay. Once I arrived, I quickly realised that we would be having a very authentic Sri Lankan experience - the local food was delicious, the tuk tuk's exciting and the view from River House was incredible, with the pinkest sunsets you've ever seen every night. In-country everything can be organised if needs be, the staff helped us get local SIM cards, change our money, organise weekend trips etc. Transport around the area in your own time is easy as they have a PMGY tuk tuk system in place, which is safe, easy and quick. River House has a beautiful view of MaduGanga river and the accommodation has a great atmosphere.

I signed up to do the orphanage project in the afternoons but also signed up to teach young Monks English in the mornings once I arrived. Each of these are two week commitments and I enjoyed every day of them. The children are all eager to learn and get to know you. At the girl's orphanage we spent some time teaching English and some time playing games and bonding with the girls. I would recommend making plans for teaching in both projects as this makes your time a lot more worthwhile with them and helps you to make the most of the hours you have together each day. Many of the girls in the orphanage like to give you their books at the end of the day and enjoy having handmade worksheets to fill in with you on the following day, which you can then check for them. All the kids are extremely hard working.

My advice for future volunteers is to come with an open mind and embrace all the quirks of the local culture. I came with high expectations and my experience went above and beyond them. The country is beautiful, the people are so kind and PMGY make your stay extremely comfortable and enjoyable.

If you're thinking about heading to Sri Lanka for volunteering I highly recommmend it. This was my first trip away alone and I was really worried about going, but PMGY helped organise everything even my flights which took so much pressure and stress off the experience. There is constant support from the team and when you arrive there is always someone around to answer questions. There is also a couple of group chats you get added to whilst you're over there which the organisers always check. Nalaka would always be online to organise transport for you and friends if you wanted to go somewhere, making it really easy to see other areas of Sri Lanka.
I stayed in River House, which is the main accommodation, and there was lovely views, monkeys in the trees and really spacious rooms. There isn't many places to unpack your stuff but everyone just slid their suitcase under the bed and found it easier living out of it for a couple of weeks anyway. The food was also really good but they staff will also make any extra snacks or tea for you during the day if you ask nicely!

The elephant project was, definitely for me, a big eye opener to what these elephants have to go through every day. During orientation Ashika explained to us what to expect on the experience so we were prepared for the elephants to be in chains as it was the law. Although, I feel everyone who bought a day pass should have been told this as some people were so surprised they refused to participate, which made it harder for everyone else. Over all, knowing these elephants are having a break from their work and time to relax certainly outweighed the negatives. It did feel like we were helping them everyday, although finding out they are scrubbed for 4 hours a day was a shock when we only scrubbed them for an hour! On our final day we were taken to see a male who had been rescued by Ashika and allowed to move freely with out chains. He was so well behaved it was amazing to see him walk around freely, even to home when his mahout told him to so. It was incredible to see, after several young elephants had to be chained more as they were not fully trained.

I also went on the hilltop and safari weekend trip, from Friday morning to Sunday evening. Although some people complained that there was to much traveling involved, you must realise no one ever saw so many incredible things staying in one spot. Yes, there was a lot of time on the bus, but even looking out of the window had its perks when driving up the side of a mountain to see a tea plantation, and feeling as though the bus could topple off the edge at any moment. The hotels we stayed in were also lovely and it was great to try new food, and wake up ready for the next days adventure! The hike to worlds end was also great! While in Sri Lanka we came to realise that the time you were meant to be picked up was usually half an hour to an hour earlier than when they actually arrive. We asked Kazun how long the hike was, he responded 2 hours, so we were expecting 3/4 hours.. to our surprise it was actually 2 hours!

Overall, I really do suggest taking a trip to Sri Lanka, if you're unsure then pop by for only 2 weeks, and you can always extend your trip while you're over there! - the team also make this really easy for you to do if you want to!

I volunteered in Sri Lanka for 2 weeks from the 5th to the 19th August with PMGY and can honestly say I had the most amazing time and met the most amazing people.
The staff at PMGY were fantastic as soon as I had signed up, keeping me updated on my application and allowing my friend and I to book together. They helped me to book my flight and answered any questions I had, no matter how insignificant they were (Colby in particular was a great help, responding almost instantly and helping with many different aspects of my application). The volunteer handbook was very useful in getting a basic understanding of the culture and was helpful when trying to apply for visas etc.
The team in Sri Lanka were so welcoming and friendly; they always made an effort to have a conversation and a laugh with you and were also good at giving advice on what to do in Sri Lanka.

I stayed in River House, which although it wasn't the best, I had a great time there and made so many memories. There were a lot of bugs, a few problems with the bathroom (which the staff were very quick in dealing with once we'd actually told them!) and not a lot of room in the bedrooms but being in such close proximity to the other volunteers allowed us all to become very close friends. The swimming pool is a great area to allow you to talk to some of the other volunteers in other rooms and was lovely to be able to have a swim after a long morning of volunteering!
I personally really enjoyed the food at the accommodation. Lunches and dinners were usually very good and I tried a lot of new food that I otherwise wouldn't have had the chance to. Breakfast was much more repetitive and wasn't as great but many of us bought our own food to eat in the mornings.

Although it was harder work than I had expected, I really enjoyed doing the elephant project. It was an amazing experience to be so up close with the elephants and to be able to wash and feed them. Although they experienced some complications with one of the elephants and mahouts (which was completely out of PMGY's control) which slightly disrupted the normal routine of our project, the coordinators made sure we still got to work with the elephants everyday. On a typical day we would drive about an hour to get to the elephants, clean up the site e.g. shovelling elephant dung, sweeping leaves etc. There was then a short walk to the river where we would wash and scrub the elephants. We then fed the elephants, got loads of photos and then had an hour drive back to the house. There was also an elephant safari included in this project which was one of the best days on the project. We got up at about 3am and drove to Udawalawe National Park where we saw so many elephants - it was a great start to the 2 weeks!

I had one full weekend in Sri Lanka and used this to go on the Yala National Safari Weekend Trip. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the activities that we did (especially the World's End hike, Hindu temple and Yala National Safari Park), I felt like there wasn't enough time to spend in each place as we did so much travelling on the bus over just one weekend. However, it was a good way to be able to see things further afield in a short space of time. If I had been in Sri Lanka for another weekend, I definitely would have loved to use this for independent travel with my friends.

Overall, I had an amazing experience in Sri Lanka and the staff at PMGY were absolutely amazing from the beginning to the end. I would have loved to stay for longer than 2 weeks as I felt like there was so much more I had to see and I would have loved to have experienced some of the other projects too.

The mental health and psychology programme has a varied schedule including working in a local orphanage, visiting out patient clinics, meditations with monks and meeting psycharists. Learning about the differences between western and Sri Lankan medication was also very interesting such as meeting an Ayurvedic practitioner and observing her with clients!

The majority of the time the programme is either in the morning or afternoon and is quite rare for it to be both. You would generally spend around 2-3 hours a day on project and then have the rest of the day to yourself. On occasion we would turn up to our project locations and project would be cancelled.

All the pre-departure information was very thorough and useful. The addition of the handbook was very reassuring and helpful. While I was there the staff were so informative and supportive to me, especially the cooks. I loved the accommodation: lots of space and not far from the town. I worked on the Medical Project for a week and a half where I observed the doctors and nurses in the private hospital. I found some part interesting and helpful but it was a little unstructured for me. As the doctors and nurses are really busy, we didn't do anything for most of the majority of the mornings I worked on the project but what we did do was really good. The last half of the last week I worked in the Monk School which was so good. I loved teaching the monks and they made me feel very much apart of their community. My only advice would be bring more English money than you think as I started to run out and felt obliged to stay in when others went out and was also unable to buy more internet while I was in London House. Overall though, it was amazing! :)

The PMGY trip was really good, especially in regards to the social aspects, but do be warned that on construction that it is quite costly. Given that you only do 1 hour, which makes sense given it is hard work, it may not seem value for money, but know that for all of them you pay for the social aspect and safety as well. Thus, I would strongly recommend this trip if you are looking to help abroad but are also very driven to sightseeing and going out with friends. Note, it is costly so have a wallet that will almost definitely become a lot emptier.

It was my first time doing volunteering activities. I had a really good time in Sri Lanka. I did the orphanage project for four weeks and the turtles project for two week. The orphanage It´s been my favourite one for sure. Being able to spend time with these kids was incredible. Every day they were waiting for us in the entrance of the orphanage with a big smile in their faces. Maybe these kids can teach us more than we can teach them such as value more the things that we have in the first world and be more generous because we can be happy with much less than we have. To sum up, It was a really good experience that I recommend to everyone!

I took part in the Real Experience in Sri Lanka, where I went travelling all around the country with a group of 13 others in the first two weeks of my trip and then did a volunteering placement in the second two weeks.
The first half of the experience was amazing (as was the rest of it). We saw so much of the country and had so much fun; it was a great way to get to know the people I was with and we all got along really well. We were accompanied by our guide and driver (Kasun & Jaga <3) and they were always on hand to answer our questions and keep us safe. Our accommodation was in various hotels (all included in the price and organised by PMGY), which were all clean. We were always doing something enjoyable, be it visiting an elephant orphanage, relaxing on a beach, going on safari or touring temples. The food we had (again organised by PMGY and included in the price) was unbelievable! I would often fill up two plates of food because it was that good and I always looked forward to lunch and dinner. This was an awesome way to see the country and I am sure that if I had not gone with PMGY and had gone independently, I would not have done all that I did in these two weeks and certainly not for as low a price.
During the second two weeks, I volunteered at Roseth Hospital (one of the medical projects) and stayed at River House (one of PMGY's volunteer houses). The project exceeded my expectations massively; I learnt so much during my time there and it was much more structured than I was expecting. We were given topics to learn about in each department we went to, such as the different types of containers used when taking blood or the procedure of Root Canal Treatment in Dentistry. This made sure we had a basis upon which to ask questions and learn. I was very impressed and would recommend this project to anyone thinking of going into healthcare, as it does teach you a lot (especially in the Dental Surgery department). Everyone I met at the hospital was very friendly and happy to answer my questions and by the end of my two weeks here, I was sorry to leave. One thing I would also say about the project, however, is that it seemed to me more like a work experience placement than a volunteering project. This is because there was little scope to help others, as the most we could do was assist on a very basic level and even this was very rare. The focus was therefore on furthering your own knowledge through observing, rather than first hand experience, which to be fair was made clear by PMGY in all the information they provided before and after I signed up.
As the project did not run on the weekends, we were free to do some independent travelling and these provided yet more great memories. With people that had now become my friends, we would plan where we wanted to go, book our accommodation and hit the road, all with recommendations and help from fellow volunteers and staff. This was another really fun part of the trip, as we had total control over what we did and where we went. Unsurprisingly, beaches were a common theme for weekend trips. With all the shops, bars and places to eat that came with the sun, sea and sand, it was hard not to have a good time. In fact, I would often also go to another, nearer beach after I finished my project at the hospital, as it was only about 45 minutes from the volunteer house and travel there and back would usually cost less than £1.
All in all, this was an outstanding trip. Sri Lanka is a beautiful country, which I am not in a hurry to forget about. PMGY are amazing; every member of that company I encountered, be they in London or Sri Lanka, were exactly the type of people you would want to be around and have support you.