Volunteer Program

Our sanctuary offers a Volunteer Program for those who wish to come to Greece to help us take care of our animals and other related activities, gain experience in working with animals and contribute to a good cause.

Those who will come to volunteer in our sanctuary will have a chance to:

✔️ gain a valuable knowledge and work experience (if it is their professional field) about animal care and running the animal sanctuary
✔️ learn about the Greek animal welfare challenges, laws etc.
✔️ get a sense of achievement, self-confidence and motivation
✔️ be part of our community and help to make a difference

Make a difference, become a S.M.A.R.T. VOLUNTEER!

VOLUNTEERS SHOULD MEET FOLLOWING REQUIREMENTS:

Animal lovers well experienced in cat care (cat owners, volunteers in animal shelters, certified animal caretakers, animal behavior specialists, veterinarians, vet assistants, students of veterinary schools etc.)
Mature, reliable and responsible
Clean, tidy, hardworking, and attention to detail to help keep our premises to high sanitary standards
Team players & positive attitude & good English communication skills
In addition the following skills will be a plus: photography, social media, experience from animal charity organizations, experience in grants or fundraising

HELP WE NEED & CONDITIONS

🐈 🧹 Work tasks:

Feeding the cats (and dogs)
Cleaning litter boxes, cleaning all indoor and outdoor areas of the shelter
Taking care of our garden
Playing with and petting our cats
One can be also asked to help with other tasks, including taking photos/videos of our cats (dogs) for promotion of their adoptions, making toys/crafts for our charity shop, painting our wooden cat houses, and other projects as per shelter managers instructions

⏱ Work schedule:

Our volunteers work 5 days a week and they have 2 days off.
There are two work ‘shifts’ during the day - morning and afternoon shift. Shifts time and their schedule can be a subject to change, depending on the number of volunteers and on the immediate needs of our shelter
Our volunteers alternate to work at our foster home (see Our facility section). Scheduling volunteers for our foster home is decided by the management as per our actual needs for help.

🧹 Sanitary conditions & Cleanliness rules:

The majority of the work is cleaning so our cats and human guests are living in constant sanitary conditions and we make sure the sanctuary is cleaned to a very high standard every day.
All volunteers need to clean up after themselves, keep their bedrooms clean and respect the cats and the fact that it is their house. You will be expected to clean the kitchen, bathrooms and bedrooms daily in order to keep the cats safe and taken care of.

HOW IT WORKS:

If you would like to register for our Volunteer Program, please fill in our APPLICATION FORM below:

Application Form

In order to make sure that the potential volunteer will be a good fit for our shelter, we always organize AN ONLINE CHAT with one of our shelter managers prior to providing our final confirmation.

After your volunteering is confirmed, you will organize for your travel bookings, inform us about your travel details and we will coordinate for your airport pick up (see Airport pick up/drop off section below)

WHAT WE OFFER TO OUR VOLUNTERS

MEALS:

Our shelter provides select groceries so volunteers can prepare their own breakfast & lunch in accordance with their dietary preferences (vegan/vegetarian options are available). Dinner is not provided but our managers organize for a regular weekly shopping based on the lists obtained from the volunteers (or volunteers can alternatively join them for shopping)

ACCOMODATION: is being provided for free at
- 🛏 1 small single bed room downstairs (with private bathroom)
- 🛏 1 small bunk bed in the living room downstairs (with an access to the private/shared bathrooms)
- 🛋 1 double bed bedroom upstairs (with shared bathroom)
- 🛏 1 bunk beds room (with shared bathroom)

In case of need, there are 2 large round sofas downstairs to accommodate extra 2 people.

AIRPORT PICK UP/DROP OFF:

Our shelter managers will provide FREE transport to and from the airport upon your arrival and departure days.

IMPORTANT! For arrivals/departures from 9 pm until 9 am the volunteers are responsible for their own transportation from/to the airport. Our shelter managers can coordinate ahead of time for them to book a taxi (taxi is being paid by the volunteer in this case).

OUR FACILITY:

Our shelter in Kouvaras is about 15 minutes by car from the Athens International Airport.
It is a 2 floor modern house, situated in olive grove and surrounded by greenery and hills.

SHELTER AMENITIES INCLUDE:
- fully equipped kitchen
- laundry room with washing machine & dryer
- Free WIFI and TV in every room
- Sitting area at the balcony
- Private parking place
- 3 bicycles and helmets available to our volunteers

Our volunteers alternate to stay and help also in our foster home in Varkiza (abt. 20 minutes by car from our main shelter). Our foster home is a smaller private home (managed by our team member), fully equipped to receive maximum 2 volunteers.

❗️❗️ IMPORTANT ❗️❗️ Our cat residents live freely in the house. Please note that volunteers coming to stay with us will most likely have one or more kitties sleeping with them in their bedrooms. This also means that you will be likely to have litter trays, toys and lots of cuddles during the night. Also, some cats need to be isolated at times due to the health reasons and may be staying in the rooms for certain time periods. 🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈

About our Volunter program

🐾 Our Volunteer program was launched in 2018 and to this date over 300 volunteers have participated in our program. Majority of our volunteers are coming through the Workaway project, practically from around the world (Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, Asia, South America). In 2020 we partnered with German NATUCATE a conscious travel platform offering nature tourism and voluntary service abroad We have also volunteers from our local Athens community.
🐾 Our volunteers are of a broad age (from 5 to over 60 coming from a different walks of life (single people, moms travelling with their children, couples) and different backgrounds ( experience travelers, animal care providers, vets, photographers, marketing specialists etc).

🐾 Our volunteers are involved in practically all areas of our Greece campaign's work and we are grateful for their amazing contribution 💗 Many of them are also helping with raising funds for our charity on social media and other platforms as well as helping with making gifts for our Let's be S M A R T charity shop on Etsy. Several of them are even returning back home with cats they felt in love with during their volunteering time in the shelter and others help as fligh volunteers to bring adopted kittie sto their forever homes.