Volunteer with enviro group in E.Siberia

[Mark (Kingston, ON)]

Summer in Siberia: Great Baikal Trail

Missing the Canadian summer? Pine, spruce, and cedar, clear, cool lakes, tents and campfires. Take out the canoe, throw in a bunch of Russians and the 'work brigade' ethos, and you have the GBT summer projects.

The Great Baikal Trail, is a small conservation non-profit based in Siberia devoted to building a system of trail around Lake Baikal to help create an infrastructure for ecological tourism as an alternative to industrial development.

Work, cook, camp, live, and make friends while part of an international multi-cultural work crew in pristine, and sometimes remote, parts of the Lake Baikal Basin. Interact with locals and indigenous people, such as Buryats and Evenks. Volunteers are diverse in age and life experience, many keep in touch for life.

GBT has 23 two-week long, summer 2007 projects. Participants must know English OR Russia and be 18 or older. Each project has 15 to 20 volunteers (typically half Russian and half international), a Russian crew leader, and a Russian English / Russian translator.

Customized work projects and village home stays may be arranged for an organized group. Long-term volunteers also needed.
Cost to the volunteer: GBT fee: $250 to $300 per person for a project. The fee pays for registering your visa with local authorities, food for the time of the project, equipment and leaders costs, and transportation from the project start location to the project. The GBT fee is reduced by 10% for every person you sign up to be a volunteer. Sign up 10 people, and you pay no GBT fee. If you're already in Russia, getting here won't be too hard.

Contact us at gbt.volunteers[at]gmail

Cheers,
Mark